


Curls of Smoke and Music Notes

by TheAdorableTia



Series: When Two Become One [2]
Category: Bohemian Rhapsody (Movie 2018) Actor RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Time, Idiots in Love, Kissing, M/M, Smut, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, hardzzello
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:33:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 42,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25663675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheAdorableTia/pseuds/TheAdorableTia
Summary: “It’s your soulmate mark my dear.” His mom said softly once her son had calmed down enough to listen. “It means that your match has been born, and hopefully one day you’ll meet them.” Joe’s dad ruffled his hair and grinned down at his son.“Like your mom and I.” He looked up with adoration at his wife and then down at his son. “We were very lucky, and I just know that you will be too my boy.”Joe smiled up at his dad, and knew deep down in his bones that his dad spoke the truth. He had never led his son astray before, why would he do so now?~OR~The Hardzzello soulmate AU that nobody (except for like one person) asked for.
Relationships: Ben Hardy/Joe Mazzello, Ben Hardy/Katrina what's her face, Joe Mazzello/Original Character(s)
Series: When Two Become One [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2020564
Comments: 31
Kudos: 35





	1. Play on the Heartstrings

**Author's Note:**

> Strap yourself in, because this is gonna be a bumpy ride. This chapter is all about Joe and his history with soulmate marks. Enjoy! Apologies in advance for the end of the chapter!

Joe’s soulmate mark appeared on a snowy winter morning when he was seven. He woke up from a fitful sleep to an itching sensation along his hip. He had looked down and screamed when he saw the little lines of black etching themselves into his skin. He jumped out of his bed and ran down the hall to his parents’ room, who had already been awoken by the cries of their eldest son. He launched himself into their bed and started babbling about itching and black lines and he tugged up his pajama shirt to show them the slowly appearing shapes arising in his skin. His parents held him tight, telling him everything was ok, they knew what was happening and that it would be over soon.

It felt like an eternity to the young boy, but eventually the itching stopped, and so did his own tears. 

“It’s your soulmate mark my dear.” His mom said softly once her son had calmed down enough to listen. “It means that your match has been born, and hopefully one day you’ll meet them.” Joe’s dad ruffled his hair and grinned down at his son.

“Like your mom and I.” He looked up with adoration at his wife and then down at his son. “We were very lucky, and I just know that you will be too my boy.”

Joe smiled up at his dad, and knew deep down in his bones that his dad spoke the truth. He had never led his son astray before, why would he do so now?

Joe had held a naive hope that he would find his soulmate soon when his mark first appeared. The winter months were always the hardest, and his eyes studied every breath that fogged out of people’s mouths. He would get excited every time he saw a chimney stack, or at a restaurant where he could see the steam rising from the kitchen. None of them seemed to truly match the swirls and curls of lines that decorated his hip. It took him a couple of years and no small amount of teasing from his classmates for him to realize that finding his soulmate now would be weird. They’d be little more than a toddler, and even his nine year old self thought that was odd.

Joe had loved acting ever since he was a child, and once his soulmate mark appeared he knew that his passion would help lead him to the person he was meant to be with. It was this gut feeling that he had deep down inside, like this was the track to stay on. When he’d been in Jurassic Park, he’d actually hoped that the girl who was playing his sister would be the one. She was cute and she was a good actress and fun to be around. That little crush had been very short lived when reality had struck him down. He had cried in his room that night when he remembered that the person he was meant to spend the rest of his life with wouldn’t even know or care what a soulmate was even if he had found them. It broke his eleven year old heart.

More years passed, and it had become a habit. Every time it got cold, Joe’s eyes would dart around looking for the lines that he knew as well as he knew his own face. Every time he passed a steaming vent on the streets of New York City, his eyes would cast around, trying to see if there was anyone he felt drawn to.  
Joe had managed to get a girlfriend a few times over the years. He was good looking enough, and he had a stellar personality if he said so himself. It was never really all that hard to find a woman who was willing to at least go on a few dates with him. He’d tried a couple of times to make things more serious, but those girls were basically only in a relationship with him as means to pass the time or get in a good lay.

Then there was one day just like any other, except that he saw her standing there in front of him at the bodega that made his favorite bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich. Over the edge of her delicate shoulder he could see a curl of steam that looked similar enough to the one that was on his hip. His breath caught in his throat, thinking that this could be the moment. The one he had been searching for over the last two decades. She had dark blond hair that fell down her back in soft waves, and the coat she wore did nothing to diminish the feminine shape of her body. 

When she’d finished placing her order, Joe had quickly spoken up and put in his own order. “And I’ll pay for this lovely woman’s as well.” He said with a smile. That had gotten the woman’s attention and she turned towards Joe. She was just as pretty as he thought she would be, even though he’d only seen her from the back. She had delicate elfin features. A cute button nose, round lips and wide brown doe eyes.

“You don’t need to do that.” Her voice was soft and clear, and she seemed to be a little on the shy side. Joe liked that. The women he’d been with before had usually worked in the acting field in some capacity and everything felt like it was a show to them. This woman felt different than those other ones. He couldn’t place it, but it was there nonetheless. 

Her name was Miranda, but she insisted on being called Randi. After Joe paid for their sandwiches, Randi had suggested that they could go to the little park across the street to eat them. It was only fair, of course. Joe had bought her lunch and the least she could do was eat it with him. It was actually refreshing for Joe when he introduced himself. His name didn’t ring a bell to her. Most people he met mentioned him looking familiar and then would get a look of recognition when he said his name, or mentioned a movie he had been in.

Randi did none of those things. If she knew who he was, she did a really good job of hiding it. By the time they had finished eating their sandwiches, both of them were smiling and talking like they were old friends and not two total strangers. It had felt easy to exchange phone numbers with Randi. Over the course of a few weeks, Joe and Randi had met up again at least five more times. There was an easiness to being around the woman that Joe enjoyed and at some points he felt like he could easily fall for this petite woman with her big eyes, shy smile, and quick wit. He couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment when things had transitioned from just a few dates to being an exclusive couple. If he had to guess it had been after about three months of dating when the physical side was starting to kick up a bit. He did know that Randi, though progressive in her thoughts, was more reserved when it came to things like intimacy. That was fine with Joe, he didn’t need to jump into her pants right away.

What had bothered him though was that it almost felt like Randi was hiding something from him. Every time she told him to stop when he tried to expose more of her skin to him he always respected her wishes, backing off whenever she told him to. He just couldn’t shake that uncertainty. It didn’t feel like she was uncomfortable with the idea of sex, it was more as if she didn’t want him to see her. He had still fallen head over heels for her.

It went on like that for over eight months before Joe had the courage to say something to Randi about it. He really had been trying to be patient with her, but he was starting to feel like she was avoiding intimacy with him on purpose and not just because she wasn’t ready to take that step with him.

“It just feels like.. I don’t know.. Like you don’t want me to see you or something. Like you’re hiding something from me. I just want to understand what is going on.” Joe said with an air of patience that he was quickly running out of. He had entertained thoughts of spending the rest of his life with this woman, but now he was starting to doubt that.

“I’m a Blank.” Randi suddenly blurted out, frustration lacing her usually calm voice. Joe couldn’t have been more shocked if she’d suddenly sprouted a second head on her shoulders. Neither of them had ever really discussed their soulmate marks. It hadn’t really felt right for some reason. Any time the subject had come up, the conversation had suddenly shifted to something else. It should have been another indicator for Joe, but he’d shuffled it to the back of his mind. Some people were embarrassed to talk about the marks that were on their skin. Or, in Randi’s case, the lack thereof.

Blanks were not exactly uncommon. Unlike people who just had a bigger gap, ‘Blanks’ didn’t have a mark appear on their body until they met their soulmate. There were Blanks who never got a mark. It was a weird hiccup in the system that no one could explain. This was why Randi hadn’t wanted Joe to see her without her clothing. He would have seen that her skin was pristine and free of any markings that could tell him if she was his match.

Joe had been taken aback at her sudden admission to him. Even though he’d never asked about her marks, and she his, he’d assumed that she had one. As shocking as the revelation was, it didn’t make Joe like her or want to be with her any less. Just because she didn’t have a mark on her skin, it didn’t mean Joe hadn’t found someone he could share his life with, and he told her so. She’d been hesitant at first, but had given in. 

They were together for another year after that. Soon after the confession Randi had given to Joe, the two moved in together. Joe was happy with her, and he was definitely in love. He had even been contemplating asking her to marry him. He’d found a ring that he thought that she would like.

Then one day, everything in Joe’s romantic world came crashing down.

Randi was being more closed off than usual. After everything that had happened, Joe had hoped that she’d gotten over the insecurity of being a Blank. He showed her just how much he cared about her and that he didn’t care about her lack of a mark. When he tried to talk about it, she just casually brushed it off, saying that she was fine. Joe had just gotten back from filming another movie, and was looking forward to spending time with his girlfriend after being separated for months. It stayed that way for a few days after he returned, the awkwardness of it heavy in the apartment.

One day about a week after returning home, Joe had come back early from a meeting with his agent. He was feeling excited because he’d been trying for ages to get anyone to be interested in the screenplay he had been writing. Finally they’d been able to find some interested parties to give them funding for it. He heard the sound of the shower for a few seconds, but then it shut off. He removed his jacket and hung it on the hook and tiptoed down the hallway, wanting to surprise Randi. 

He peeked around the open doorway to their bedroom with a smile as he watched her go through the motions of getting dressed. His eyes roamed along her body, the one he had missed so much, until his eyes caught on something against the back of one slight shoulder. 

There was a mark there. One that had never been there before. It hadn’t been there the last time they had made love just before he’d left to go film the latest project. It was small, but noticeable. He stayed back and studied it as Randi continued to clothe herself, oblivious to her boyfriend peeping from behind the door frame. His heart dropped into his stomach as his girlfriend tugged a shirt on, making the mark disappear under the material. Anger replaced the sorrow in Joe’s chest as he stepped out from his semi-hidden spot.

“No, please, don’t get dressed on my account.” Joe said with a bit of iciness in his voice. Randi yelped out loudly and spun around to see Joe standing in the doorway with his knuckles white from gripping on to the door frame. The anger seemed to roll off of Joe in waves, the look of hurt and betrayal apparent on his face.

“Joe, I’m sorry, we can talk-” Randi said quickly, her hands held up in a placating gesture. Joe just cut off her words with his own. Usually, Joe was fairly sensible. He was silly and a goofball and was very understanding. This was too much for his sensibilities right now. She’d been lying to him for who knew how many months while he’d been gone.

“Save the apologies and explanations. How long?” His hands released the frame and crossed over his chest as he stared her down. He wasn’t trying to look intimidating, but he just wanted to shrink in on himself and not show just how much his hands were shaking.

“About a week after you left.” Randi’s voice was quiet as she spoke, and her whole body seemed to deflate as she dropped down to sit on the edge of their bed. “I didn’t.. I didn’t mean for it to happen Joe.. I was on the subway and I felt the back of my shoulder itch and then this strange sensation and when I looked up I saw him..” Her voice trailed off, her eyes looking out of the apartment window, trying her best to not look Joe in the face.

“And you thought, well fuck it, found my soulmate but I’m not going to tell the man I’ve been living with for a year about it.” Joe’s voice was full of disgust as the last few words left his mouth and he shook his head, still angry with a whole host of other emotions cycling through him on top of that. Disappointment, hurt, betrayal, and sorrow, it all layered over the top in waves.

“I didn’t want to tell you over a phone call, or in a text. It wouldn’t have been fair.” She said with no small amount of exasperation and what sounded like regret. “I’ve never been in this sort of situation before, if you can believe it.” It was said with no small amount of sarcasm, and Joe knew the words were covering up her own sense of hurt and guilt but they still hit him hard.

“I can understand not wanting to do it so impersonally,” Joe tried to keep him tone calm as much as he wanted to lash out at her with everything inside of him that was aching. “But I’ve been home for over a week, you giving me the cold shoulder, and yet you still didn’t say anything.” 

“I didn’t know what to say Joe. I felt so much for you. I really did. It was hurting me to know that I was going to break your heart and I just couldn’t find the words to say it.”

“Any words would have worked!” Joe said as he threw his hands up in the air. He didn’t even know why they were having this discussion anymore. It was over between them. It didn’t matter now how much he loved her, or she loved him. Now that she had a mark appear, she would never be truly happy unless she was with the other man. Her true soulmate. The one that wasn’t Joe. He looked back down at her, and it was like a switch had flipped inside of him. He couldn’t bear to look at her anymore. “And I don’t need any of them now.” He went to step back out of the bedroom and down the hall back to the front door. He grabbed his jacket and threw it back on. “I’m going to stay with my parents for a couple of days. I’d appreciate it if your stuff was out by the time I get back.” He didn’t look at her once while he spoke, not even when he heard the telltale sound of a choked sob coming from the woman.

Joe confided everything to his parents when he showed up unexpectedly on their doorstep later that day. They’d held him as he cried, given him a pillow to scream into when he couldn’t hold back, and left him alone when it seemed he just wanted the silence. After three days of alternating between quiet tears, and raging heartbroken screams, Joe returned back to his apartment in the city. Randi had followed through on his request. All of her clothes and toiletries were missing, as were some knick knacks and books that were hers as well. It seems she had removed all of the pictures of the two of them as well. 

It seemed that she had taken painstaking measures to remove herself from the place. She had even gone so far as to request to be removed from the lease, leaving a copy of the agreement on the kitchen island for Joe to sign. The rental agreement was up in less than a month at this point anyways, and as Joe looked around, even the distinct lack of her presence was a reminder of what had once been there.

So, he didn’t stay. He found a new place within a week, still in the city but away from his old haunts where he could still see her everywhere. He sold or gave most of the things from the apartment away. He was starting his life over, basically from scratch and he wouldn’t make the same mistake again.

Joe threw himself into his work. He had secured funding for his movie, and to both cut down on costs and keep himself busy he took on the roles of writer, director, producer, and was playing one of the characters. He had managed to secure a cast of amazing actors through sheer will power and good fortune. It didn’t hurt that he was lucky to have friends who were willing to come work for way less than they were worth just because they believed in the project and in Joe. It had kept him busy enough that he hadn’t had time to really think about her during it. By the time filming was over, Joe felt almost back to normal. He had, however, made a vow that he was going to stay away from anything having to do with soulmates for the rest of his life. If it meant he was alone forever, then so be it.

Not long after Undrafted had been released, Joe had been contacted about a role in a big movie. It had been awhile since he’d done something that was on such a grand scale, and the role he was being considered for was one of the main characters. It was the opportunity of a lifetime. The ability to play one of the world’s most respected musicians would be an absolute dream, especially since it happened to be one of his all time favorite bands.

He had been immensely relieved when he got the call from the studio saying that he had nailed getting the part of John Deacon, the bass player of Queen. He had redoubled his efforts in learning the bass, a task he had taken up in the event that he might have had to prove his ability to play for the audition. By the time it got around to the beginning of rehearsals for the group, Joe could already play a few of the songs with passing proficiency. 

He’d been the first to show up that morning, wanting to get in some extra practice time before the others arrived so as not to make an absolute fool out of himself. His co-star and friend Rami had not been too far behind him. They’d been chatting while Joe was idly plucking at the Bass strings when the door to the rehearsal room opened up and Gwilym Lee stepped through with a smile on his face. Joe had taken an immediate liking to Gwil, and the three men chatted animatedly as they waited for the final member of “The Band” to show up.

Joe was holding the bass, his fingers moving over the strings playing the riff that he was most comfortable with. It was fairly simple, but it was one of the most recognizable ones. He was walking through the riff with Rami and Gwil, showing them the positioning when the door to the rehearsal room opened. The smile on Joe’s face dropped when a curl of smoke wafted from the mouth of the man he knew to be Ben Hardy. The way the smoke curled and swirled around had brought up the exact image of the lines that were imprinted on the skin just above his hip bone. He could almost taste the nicotine on his tongue and the feeling of smoke in his lungs. A small tingle ran through his body, starting at the very top of his head and winding its way down to his toes, touching every inch of him on the way.

He turned his eyes back down to the instrument in his hands and he knew it would be rude to ignore his new co-star but Joe’s hands wouldn’t stop shaking. Gwil and Rami stood to introduce themselves to Ben. Joe’s fingers started to play with the strings again, plucking out the opening bass line from Another One Bites The Dust as a way to keep them busy, and to keep the others from seeing him trembling. Joe didn’t look up until he heard a gasp of surprise coming from the general direction of the other three men. He tore his eyes away from the bass, his fingers no longer shaking like they once had to see Ben’s hand was being gripped by Rami’s, his arm held out. The blond man was standing unearthly still, his eyes glassy. 

When Joe focused on the arm that was being held out, he could see a series of lines and dots along the man’s muscled forearm from wrist to elbow. It looked like music. More specifically, it looked like a bass riff that Joe was exceedingly familiar with.

“I swear it looks like,” Rami said quietly as he and Gwil both studied the pattern on the younger man’s arm, “It looks like the bass line to Another One Bites The Dust.” Gwil and Rami both raised their eyes to look at each other, up at the still frozen in shock Ben, and finally over to Joe who was clutching the bass held in his arms tightly against his own chest.

“Maybe.. ” Gwil started out softly when he saw the deer in headlights look that was firmly in place on Joe’s face, “You two are soulmates.”


	2. Beat on my Soul

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben has never known a time when he didn't have the little lines and dots running up and down his forearm. He knew he was destined for greatness, both in his career and with the one who was destined to be his soulmate. He didn't know that the journey to get there was going to be so tumultuous.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we are! Chapter two and Ben's journey to finding his soulmate! Big huge shout out to Just_Call_Me_Floss who co authored this chapter with me. The best parts are most likely written by them. Please let me know down in the comments below if you liked it!

Ben had never known a time when he didn’t have his soulmate mark. The little dots and lines that had littered his forearm were there from the day he was born. At first they just looked like a series of long lines and blobs on his chubby baby body, but as he grew up the formless bits of black took on actual shape. He couldn’t figure out exactly what the shape was until he was around ten years old.

He was in his primary school music class, trying his best to learn how to play the dumb plastic recorder that every school child had to learn. The music teacher, Mrs. Clayborne, a middle aged woman who reminded Ben very much of a chicken, had been helping him with his frankly awful playing when she noticed the mark under the cuff of his shirt. 

“Oh, those look like music notes dear. May I see?” Mrs. Clayborne asked sweetly. Despite her nose causing her to resemble a bird, she really was a nice woman. Ben felt a little bit nervous, but also excited at the idea that the woman might know what his mark meant. Ben nodded politely, as was expected of him, and allowed the teacher to roll up the sleeve so she could study the black lines and dots that littered his skin. 

She let out small ‘hmms’ and ‘huhs’ as she looked over the markings, and then she hummed out a tune. She turned a smile to the nervous young Ben while giving him a reassuring pat on his arm. She rolled his sleeve down, and held up his little plastic instrument to him. “Whoever your soulmate is, they will have very good taste in music.”

Later on, during recess, the other children in Ben’s class started to poke fun at him.

“Ew, your soulmate is Mrs. Clayborne. That’s gross!”

“Your soulmate is an old lady who likes weird music!”

It made Ben upset, and by the time the fifth or sixth insult had been hurled his way he’d been ready to tackle one of the boys teasing him. He wasn’t able to as the teacher called all the children to come back inside to continue class. The bullying didn’t stop him from humming the tune he had heard Mrs. Clayborne did when she studied the mark on him.

At the end of the day, he’d nearly run all the way home. He couldn’t wait to tell his mum about his new discovery about his soulmate mark. 

“Mum!” Ben yelled as soon as he passed through the front door, throwing his pack down without thinking to hang it up. His mum called out that she was in the kitchen and he nearly ran straight into the doorway in his excited rush. “Mrs. Clayborne saw my mark and she told me what it is!”

“Did she now?” Ben’s mum smiled down at him and gestured for him to sit down at the table. “I’ll get some biscuits and tea going and you can tell me all about it.”

And told her he did. He explained how Mrs. Clayborne had been helping him with his recorder playing and saw his mark. Then she had hummed a tune and said that he was going to have a soulmate who liked good music.

“And what was the tune, sweetie?” Ben’s mum asked as she set down the mugs of tea and a plate loaded with biscuits for Ben.

“It's like..” Ben hummed the notes. There were nine of them, and they were fairly staccato. His mum’s eyes widened when she heard the little tune.

“Are you sure that’s the tune you heard?” She asked as Ben shoved an entire biscuit in his mouth. He nodded in response, crumbs covering his lips and somehow his cheeks in the process. She stood and gestured for her son to follow her. Ben picked up another one of the chocolate biscuits, and trailed after his mum. They stopped in the living room, and his mum opened the top of the old record player that his parents kept there. It had belonged to Ben’s Nana, but she couldn’t keep it when she moved away so it had been taken by the blond’s parents along with her record collection. His mum opened up the cabinet under the player where they kept all of the old discs.

Ben munched on the sweet treat while he watched her flip through all of the cardboard sleeves until she apparently found the one she was looking for. She gently took the record from it’s sleeve and carefully placed it on the turntable. She looked at her son, who was not so subtly brushing the crumbs off of his face and hands with a curious expression on his face. She turned on the machine and laid down the needle as the disc began to spin.

There was only some crackling sound for a few moments, but Ben’s eyes widened when he heard the same tune he had been humming coming from the speakers. The notes repeated a few times before it was joined by other instruments, and then by the powerful voice of the singer.

“Oh let’s go! Steve walks warily down the street, with the brim pulled way down low…”

After hearing that song for the first time, Ben became obsessed with Queen. He’d gotten as much information on the band as he possibly could from his mother. When his mom told him that the tune that was on his arm was written by the band’s bass player, Ben went a little nuts.

“Does this mean John Deacon is my soulmate?” He said suddenly as he looked up from the record sleeve he’d been studying. Then a look of utter shock crossed the young boy’s face, “AM I GOING TO MARRY HIM? MUM? I’M GONNA MARRY A ROCK LEGEND!” After that, she couldn’t keep her face straight. She burst into laughter right there on the floor with her son looking at her confused.

“You should only be so lucky sweetheart.”

As the years went on, Ben became enamored with the music of Queen and had nearly memorized every one of their songs. When he was still smaller he kept boasting to everyone he knew about how the notes on his arm were going to lead him to marrying a rock legend. Every one of his friends laughed, and joked with him about it as they grew up together. Once Ben had realized that he would not, in fact, be married to his new found icon his friends and family still wouldn’t let him live it down. They would refer to him as Ben Deacon, pretending not to know who he was when people asked about him.

“Ben Jones? Never heard of him. You must mean Ben Deacon.”

“That’s Benny Deacon, you know. Boy toy of that bassist from Queen.”

He discovered later on that he also had a passion for acting. When he started doing small parts in plays, it filled him with a rush of excitement that was akin to the joy he felt when he heard the sound of what he had started to refer to as his ‘soulmate song.’ He was sure that this path was right for him, and that it would lead him to great things.

He was sure that it had when he met Kat. They had just wrapped production on a play they’d been performing at his drama college, and to celebrate they threw a disco. Ben hadn’t been totally enthusiastic about the party, because he really was not much of a dancer himself. Sure he loved to bop around in his own room on occasion, but never in front of anyone else.

He was standing off to the side, a beer gripped in his hand while watching the rest of the cast, crew and several friends dancing around to the cheesy music. A smile graced his lips when he heard the telltale opening beats to his ‘soulmate song’ starting to play over the speakers. He straightened up his posture and looked around just like he did every time he heard that distinct sound when he was in public. He nearly jumped out of his skin when he heard a female voice speaking next to him over the loud music.

“Oh my god, I LOVE Queen!” 

Ben's head turned to look at the source of the voice to see a pretty blond woman standing next to him. She held a drink in one hand while her head and shoulders bopped to the beat of the song.

“Me too!” Ben said with a smile. “This is my favorite song!” He took a moment while she turned to look at him with an inviting smile spread across her lips. She was very pretty, more pretty than her profile had shown. She had long pin straight blond hair and eyes that were a shade of green that weren’t too far off of his own. The way she smiled and the bolster of his ‘soulmate song’ made him brave enough to ask her, “Do you.. want to dance?” Without another thought, she pulled him onto the dance floor.

Her name was Katriona, and Ben just knew that she was his soulmate. She had to be. Even her mark, when she showed it to him a few weeks after they had met that first night was an indicator to them both. A small crown just beneath her collarbone right over her sternum. A crown for Queen, and for Ben’s queen. The one who would rule his heart. Little did he know she would also be the one who would shred it to pieces.

Kat and Ben were nearly inseparable after that first dance under the pulsing lights of the disco to the beat of the notes on Ben’s arm. Not long after they moved in together, Ben started to get roles in bigger and better places. He managed to get a role in a play that toured all over England before finding a home in the famed West End. Ben loved every single second of it, except for maybe the bit where he had to be completely naked on stage every single night.

Kat had fallen out of the limelight, preferring to stay in the shadows of her boyfriend as his star began to rise. She was his silent supporter, the one who comforted him when he didn’t get a role, and celebrated with him when he finally broke into mainstream acting after he got his part on EastEnders. It felt like Ben was flying high. The only way that his life could go was up. He had his soulmate, and he was being taken seriously in his acting pursuit. He and Kat were solid together, year after year. 

Kat was his stalwart companion, always encouraging him to try for bigger and better things. It was her who encouraged him to try out for Archangel in X-Men.

“You’d be perfect babe! You’ve got the looks and more than enough talent to play an angel.”

That role led him to another and to another until it came to what he believed was going to be the crowning achievement of his fairly short acting career.

Bohemian Rhapsody. A film all about Queen, and Ben was hell bent on getting a role in it. There had been rumors for years about a drama based on the band going around, but now it seemed that it was really going to happen. It turned out that Ben hadn’t had to go beg to be considered. His own agent had called him and told him that the producers were interested in him for the role. The fact that he didn’t play drums -even though he told the producers he could- wasn’t going to stop him from this chance. He and Kat went out and bought a drum kit the day he was notified he got the part and started to practice.

Kat joked that she almost regretted him getting the part because now her boyfriend would stay up all hours banging away at the instrument. She did admit to him that he was improving, but that could have just been the sleep deprivation.

Ben thought that his life couldn’t get any better, until one day everything came to a screeching halt.

Ben woke up to the sound of a loud bang and crashing noise. When he turned to the clock he saw that it was just past seven in the morning, the light peeking through the window a hazy gray that was normal for a London morning. The bed beside him was empty, which he had expected. Kat had gone out to a hen party for a friend the night before and she’s said she would probably just sleep at one of her friends’ flat afterwards. He quickly climbed out of bed, rubbing his eyes and trying to shake the groggy feeling of being suddenly woken up.

“Kat?” Ben mumbled out when he saw his girlfriend with one of her suitcases next to the door. She was on the ground, picking up the pieces of the vase that had previously been on the table near the front door. “What happened? Why is your bag here?” Confusion slogged through his still sleepy brain as he took in the sight. Kat looked up at him, jumping a bit at the sudden presence of Ben in the hallway. Her face was filled with shock and regret and then Ben noticed the folded piece of paper on the table next to where the vase had been. 

When the silence stretched on, only broken by the sound of clinking porcelain as Kat kept picking up the pieces of vase, Ben spoke again in a much more worried and hesitant tone. 

“Kat… what is going on? Is.. is that a note? Why do you have your bag?” His tone became more urgent as Kat continued to not look at him, before she stood and dumped the broken pieces of vase onto the table. When she did, it felt like it was Ben’s heart that she had truly dismantled. 

“Ben.. last night I..” she looked up at him and then away again, unable to look the man she had been with for the last nearly nine years as she ripped his heart into a million pieces. “I was at the hen party and.. I met someone.”

“That’s impossible, you’re my soulmate Kat. I’m yours. How could you meet someone else?” He felt the sting of tears starting to build in his eyes. 

“Ben..” her voice was low like she was trying to soothe a frightened animal, and in that moment Ben was scared. Terrified to hear the words that were coming out of his love’s mouth. “We aren’t soulmates. I met mine last night at the hen party. I just.. I knew it was her. I had this feeling and I just knew. She knew too, and yesterday was her last night in London. She’s moving to Germany today and.. I’m going with her. I’m sorry Ben, but I have to go. She’s waiting outside for me.”

In the stunned silence that followed after her admission, Kat opened up the door and tried to exit only for Ben to reach out a grab hold of the sleeve of her jacket, his eyes and voice pleading.

“Please Kat, you can’t just throw away the last nine years of your life and mine in a single night. Please, stay and we can figure this out.” Kat looked up at him, and the pity in her eyes made anger seep into his sorrow.

“How can you do this? Do this to us? To me?!” Ben couldn’t help the annoyance bubbling up. How could she pity him right now. His life, the last nine years of his life, was suddenly being tugged from under his feet like a dusty rug no longer wanted. She opened her mouth to say something back, but stopped, was silent, and that got Bens blood boiling. She was the one who’d done this, she was the one after one day of meeting their so called soulmate decided to up and leave him. How was she certain that this was it for her? How could she be comfortable leaving her life for this person she’d bumped into walking down the street?!!

“I have to go, Ben. Goodbye.” She pulled her arm away from him, and walked out of the door, dragging her suitcase behind her without even the dignity of closing the door. Ben watched as who he had thought of as the love of his life walked away from him without so much as a backward glance.

The next two weeks of Ben’s life were hell. It took three days before the press got wind of the fact that Kat had walked out on him. Tabloids were having a field day about Ben Hardy the heartthrob of British cinema having his very heart stomped on. There was pity in every line as they wrote about the tragedy of mistaken soulmates.

All his days bled together. He didn’t know what he ate yesterday, but he must’ve eaten something. Has he actually been out of the house? The fridge is stocked, so he must’ve. Showered? Oh, nope, hasn’t done that. But he was ripped from his numbing routine by having to go and film. It was both a blessing and curse, really. Kat had been so excited when he’d gotten the role, and it now felt tainted, but it was a once in a lifetime opportunity that he couldn’t just turn down. So, grabbing his trusty smokes and shoving on his sunglasses, he was out of the house and on his way to rehearsals. 

He stood outside of the rehearsal space’s door, trying to build up the courage to enter the room and hear the music he had been avoiding for the last weeks. He took one last drag from the cigarette and held it in, letting the nicotine flood him as he crushed the butt and put it in the trash can. He opened up the door and exhaled, letting the smoke bleed slowly from his mouth and nostrils.

He pulled off his sunglasses and saw three men across the room, sitting on the edge of the drum riser where the kit he would be playing sat waiting for him. His co-stars, the people that he would be spending most of his time with in the next few months. Two of the men stood and came over, introducing themselves to him even if they all already knew who each other was. The third man, Joe, Ben remembered, stayed seated with the bass guitar still clutched in his hands. The look he gave Ben was slightly unsettling. It was a wide eyed and nervous look that was quickly downcast. Ben didn’t have time to process before Joe’s fingers played across the strings in a way that seemed twitchy and nervous. 

The notes that came flitting across the room from the small amp made Ben’s heart skip about four beats, and his breath catch in his chest. His hand was still being gripped by Rami, and his fingers squeezed around his co-stars even harder. The opening riff to Another One Bites The Dust. The exact same notes that were forever etched into his skin.

He felt the strum of the strings echoing through his veins, the vibrations causing those notes making his body shudder. It was like someone had put a spotlight on his costar, the only thing important in the room as Ben watched long fingers pluck at the base, and with each note, it felt like he was being electrocuted, every hair on his body suddenly standing straight, his skin covered in cold sweat. Is this what people normally felt like when they’d met the one?

Ben barely registered that Rami had pulled his arm out when he noticed the blond’s soulmate mark on the arm that was still extended for the handshake. He was so lost in watching Joe’s head turn up to lock eyes with him that he nearly missed Rami’s surprised gasp and Gwil’s proclamation.

“Maybe.. you two are soulmates.”


	3. Make Music with My Body

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joe and Ben have had their hearts broken, believing they had found their soulmates only to be abandoned in the end. With such storied pasts, can they move past the fear and hurt and accept what is right in front of them?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huge shout out to Just_Call_Me_Floss who truly has become a collaborator on this project. It's just as much their baby as it is mine at this point. I hope you guys enjoy it!

Ben and Joe’s eyes were locked in a heated glance. The intense energy crackling through their gazes could almost be felt through the room. Rami quickly tugged his hand away from the blond’s and the limb dropped to his side with a small thud it hit his jean clad hip. Rami and Gwil looked back and forth between the two, taking in the way the two studied each other as if nothing else in the world existed. They’d seen enough soulmates meeting to know that this was a moment. THE moment. The one where two souls called to each other like a siren song.

No one could ever really explain how it felt in that moment. There were sensations and feelings but none could describe it. It was like the universe had decided that no one would be able to truly know how it felt to have a soulmate until they were with them. It felt like a big cosmic fucking joke. Many people had lived their lives with someone, thinking that they were soulmates only to have their lives thrown asunder because their partner had found their true soulmate. Just like Ben and Joe. 

“So, we’ll just leave you two alone then. The instructors will understand if we delay for a bit.” Gwil said quickly, gesturing with his head to the door. He and Rami started to leave, trying to give Joe and Ben a moment to themselves.

“No!”

“You don’t need to go!”

Joe and Ben spoke simultaneously as their eyes broke away from each other and cut the electric feeling that had overtaken the room. When the ginger and the blond looked at each other again, it was as if an unspoken understanding passed between them. Whether it was a thing between soulmates, or just two people who understood the pain they had endured it had the desired effect.

Gwil and Rami stopped their retreat with a confused look on both of their faces. People who found their soulmates always had an innate desire to be with that person, to bond with them. It was as obvious as daylight that these two men had that connection between them. To deny that bond was absolutely inconceivable. 

“We.. we aren’t soulmates.” The words were dragged out of Joe’s mouth, like his soul was trying to fight him the entire time. It made Joe mad at his own body as it tried to betray him. As strong as the urge was to get up and wrap himself in the beautiful blond man across the room, he just gripped tighter to the bass guitar in his arms, using it like an anchor to keep himself where he was.

Ben’s hands curled up into fists as he fought his own instincts, the ones that told him he needed the handsome auburn haired man to be held in his arms, and the intense desire to lose himself in Joe’s glittering hazel eyes. Ben forced himself to think about Kat, and the way she had left him like he was nothing to her. The numbness and anger that had followed wrapped around him like armor, steeling himself against the feelings.

“He’s right, we’re not soulmates.” Ben forced himself to look Joe in the eyes again and an understanding passed between them. They would both push back any feelings they may have had for each other, and they would hopefully not resent each other by the end of filming.

Rami and Gwil had enough respect for their cast mates to let the matter drop, even if inwardly they both had the same thought, ‘These two idiots are clearly in denial.’ They both knew about Ben’s recent break up as it had been all over tabloids and news sites. Rami knew about Joe’s history with Randi. Joe hadn’t told him the entire story, but he saw how his friend had been wrecked after she’d left him. He had hoped that by now Joe would have recovered enough to at least not turn away from the possibility so quickly.

Rehearsals went on as normal, at least as normal as they could go when two of the people doing the rehearsing were soulmates in denial. Ben and Joe were civil with each other, but it was hard to try to stay separate when Deacy and Roger had always been so close. They were always looking at each other when they needed to be in sync. Ben and Joe had to take on those mannerisms and movements as they practiced on through the weeks, which meant hours upon hours of time spent looking at each other. 

It was absolute torture for both men. Every time Joe turned around to look at Ben, he saw the way the blond’s corded muscles flexed in his arms, and the look of pure concentration on his face as he kept the beat moving. When Ben took a moment to make a guilty peek at Joe, he felt his body shiver as Joe bopped around, his body swaying and bouncing like he truly was a rock star on a stage in front of thousands. The worst (best) part of it was when they met their movement coach. This woman was responsible for making sure that the four men were able to be on the same page, to have trust in one another, and learn how to emulate the men they were portraying. She was either oblivious to the tension in the room or chose to ignore it when she told them about the ‘touch-in’ exercise she was making them do. 

Ben and Joe absolutely wanted to touch each other, and because of that it meant they should never do it. There was an absolute fear in both the american and the brit that if they were to get close enough for that, the dam might break. The stares of the three other people in the room were palpable as they all watched, two of them with an eagerness that bordered on creepy. After weeks of watching Ben and Joe dance around each other, Rami and Gwil were anxious to see if anything would happen between their friends if they stopped avoiding each other outside of practices.

Joe decided that he needed to be the braver of the two, and he held out his hand palm up towards Ben with eyes filled with doubt and fear. Ben’s hand rose, shaking ever so slightly and he reached out, letting his fingertips ghost along Joe’s palm starting from his wrist, gliding over his palm and then along the length of Joe’s fingers. It was over in about two seconds, but when both men realized that the touch hadn’t sent them into a spiraling frenzy they clasped hands like a greeting. Ben and Joe both smiled tentatively to one another and moved their hands in a shake like they were meeting for the first time.

“I feel like we’re actually finally meeting now.” Joe said, a small smile crossing his lips when he and Ben’s hands fell apart. He didn’t mention the aching that had settled in his gut for just a moment at the loss of contact between the two. The twin to the feeling Ben had at the same moment.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you Joseph, I’m sure we’ll be fast friends.” Ben said with a little smirk. They’d done it. They’d made physical contact even if just for a moment and they still resisted the urge to pull into each other. Maybe there was some kind of hope for them after all.

The exercises that they’d thought of as a bit stupid at the beginning had actually become very useful in Ben and Joe’s minds. It got them used to each other in ways that made them more willing to be around each other with less fear. The feelings of longing were still very much present in the backs of their minds but they gained practice in forcing it to the background and allowing them to function as normal around each other. To the untrained eye, the two just seemed like they were good friends. Rami and Gwil, among others on the cast and crew, knew different. This was two soulmates bonding with each other even though they were denying it.

For all outward appearances, it was like things were going normally on the set when the filming began. But when the trailer doors shut, and lights were out. Things were very different.

Ben gritted his teeth, forehead pressed against the wall as he kept stroking himself, letting out little grunts of annoyance at how good it felt. His mind was filled with pictures of Joe, his laugh playing on loop, and a mini torture image of him goddamn licking his fingers before plucking at the guitar strings. “Fuck-“ Ben stuttered out, body flushed red, muscles straining as he kept himself up. He hadn’t even managed to get in the trailer properly before he shoved down his clothes and started bloody wanking. It was like his body was going against him, and the moment ‘cut’ had been called, he rushed off set and basically sprinted to privacy.

Ben thought he had been making progress. He’d been so controlled around Joe, keeping his want on a tight leash. They were nearly halfway through filming now, and he just had to keep hold for a while longer and then he could get some distance from the handsome hazel-eyed man. The image of Joe in his mind again made his cock twitch in his grasp. He hadn’t even moved further into his trailer. He’d just shut the door and leaned his head against it.

A sudden knock on the door had Ben’s body stilling and knocking the thought of Joe’s lips on Ben’s body out of his head.

“Ben? Are you ok?” Bloody hell. It was Joe, the object of his current fantasies. Ben’s hand started to move of its own accord at the sound of Joe’s voice, his senses heightened at the thought of the gorgeous man just on the other side of the door.

“I’m fine, just leave me alone.” Ben spoke, his voice low and raspy while he tried to keep the desire from surfacing in his voice.

“Ben.. I want you to know that I’m here if you need to talk about anything..” Joe said, his voice quieter than it had been before. There was a sincerity and gentleness in Joe’s voice that just did something for the blond. Ben shoved his fist against his own mouth to try and stifle a groan when his stomach muscles clenched and orgasm rocketed through him. He tried his best to contain the moans and pants of pleasure and thought he’d mostly succeeded as he made a sticky mess of himself and the entryway to the trailer. 

“Are.. you ok Ben?” Joe said, his eyes narrowed as he looked at the door he was pretty sure Ben was just on the other side of, and if the sounds he thought he heard were any indication Ben was probably in a state. 

“I told you, I’m fine. I’ll be back on in a few.” Came the muffled reply from the other side of the door. Joe’s hand reached up and hesitated over the handle, his desire to open the door to confirm what he had been thinking was nearly overwhelming. His fingers curled into a fist inches away from his target and he straightened up, hyper aware of the tightness in the crotch of his pants when the images of what he had to have heard ran through his brain. He turned around and walked off with a stiffness to his posture and stride that mimicked the stiffness in other parts of his body.

Unbeknownst to Joe or Ben, their two friends and co-stars had been spying from around the corner of the next trailer over, like a couple of weird peeping toms. It was childish, and both men were very aware of that fact, but they also both knew that all of this crap could not continue. At some point one or both of these men were going have some sort of break down and the result would not be pretty in the slightest. They’d agreed to not meddle in the affairs of the blond and ginger, figuring that it would work itself out, but now they knew that it was time to start intervening.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Rami said, like they were in some sort of old cartoon or kid’s show.

Gwil gave a nod of his head, the curls of the poodle perm wig on his head bouncing as he did. “It’s time we start meddling.”

Occasionally, the cast and crew liked to get away from the set whenever they had the time and energy to do so. It was fun to unwind in a pub, or go out to afternoon tea where Joe took to educating the others on the various types of tea and food that were served. It was pretty adorable by most accounts, and even Ben would have agreed that seeing the way Joe smiled when he got the chance was infectious. Not that he was staring or anything. 

It had been a grueling week for everyone. The schedule had been tight, working from basically before dawn until well after sunset. It didn’t help that it felt like half the time the director was late or disappeared without anyone knowing, leaving the rest of the crew to pick up the pieces. They had picked a small unpretentious little local pub that was filled to the rafters with people. It would be a great place to get lost in the crowd, have some drinks, and unwind. Gwil and Rami had each attached themselves to Joe and Ben respectively, doing their best to keep an eye on the pair just in case. There were a lot of cute people in the place and they weren’t about to let either of their charges do something they would regret later.

Gwil and Joe had taken up residence at the bar when a couple of the stools became available, each getting a pint. Joe had started up a chat with the woman who had taken up the seat on his other side, and Gwil was having half a conversation with the bloke on his other side when he noticed the rugby shirt the man sported. He turned back to check in with Joe and saw that the auburn haired man had scooted a bit closer to the woman he was talking to, leaning in and smiling at her. Gwil saw the signs. Joe was flirting with her, and that would not do. 

Gwil turned back to the guy he’d been talking with and said a polite, “Excuse me,” before turning back around and reaching up to snatch the baseball cap that Joe had been using to hide what the production team had done to his hair. “He’s got a perm!” Gwil announced as he pointed to the mass of reddish frizzy curls that were an absolute mess from being hidden under the hat. It really did look like the american had stuck his finger in a plug socket when it wasn’t styled by the hair and make up department.

Joe gaped, mouth still open and forming around the words he was speaking, but suddenly he was silenced. He saw the girls eyes flicker up to the dreadful do, the grin growing teasing before she looked back down at Joe with a smirk. She sipped from her drink, watching him for a moment more, looking between his annoyed face and the birds nest on top of his head before she thanked him for the drink and spun around, rushing back to the table of her friends. He saw the way she pointed over her shoulders and how the other girls laughed at what she said before he turned to his ‘friend’ and started to give him a mouthful.

Just as he’d managed to stuff all of his hair back into the cap and looked halfway normal again, Rami ran up to the pair of them. He was trying to appear calm, but after many years of friendship, Joe could see that there was a slight edge of panic in the Egyptian man’s eyes.

“Have either of you seen Ben?” He asked, trying to keep his tone even. Joe had been doing his best to not think about Ben, hence flirting with that woman who it seemed had been more worried about the state of the man’s hair than getting to know him. At least enough to want to do intimate things with him. Joe felt a twinge in his gut as he thought about what he had been trying to do. It suddenly felt wrong. Like the boozy numbing he’d had a minute ago had vanished and been replaced with something that felt akin to guilt.

Ben had the feeling that he was being herded like a sheep when they’d arrived at the bar. All he wanted to do was to have a few drinks, get tipsy and maybe even get laid. He needed some sort of outlet that wasn’t his hand and fantasies about Joe bloody Mazzello. He found an opportunity when Rami, who had seemed to deem himself Ben’s chaperone for the night, had gone to the bar to get another drink. There was a pretty woman with deep chestnut hair and bright eyes that had been checking him out across the room since the moment the group had walked through the door. He gave her a smile and she came over and whispered into his ear about the loo before taking off in that direction after giving him a glance over her shoulder. 

Ben may have been out of the game for quite some time, but he knew what the drill was. He scanned around and saw that Rami was still at the bar waiting for his drink before sliding out of the booth and ducking his way to the back where the toilets were. Ben was positive that the bird knew exactly who he was, and that she was doing it for the sake of being able to say she’d slept with Ben Hardy to her friends. Ben didn’t care a single bit at the moment. Alcohol was coursing through his veins, and he was in need of a quick release to get the pent up hormones out of his system.

Almost the second he had turned the lock on the cubicle size bathroom’s door, the woman was on him. Not even a hello, or a name given. It would be better this way, Ben thought as the woman’s lips connected with his. He could feel the slide of her lipstick against his skin as her mouth made its way down his jaw and neck. His hands went and gripped her hips tightly, and he couldn’t help but compare the feeling to the way he imagined it would be to have Joe in this position. This girl really was an eager one he thought as his breath hitched in his throat, her hands slipping the buttons of his shirt open. It didn’t surprise him that she wanted to see and touch that part of his body. Next to his face, it was probably the most famous thing about him. That thought actually stung a little bit, because Ben hated that he was known more for his looks and shape than he was for his talent.

Not like Joe. Joe was absolutely gifted, and he was gorgeous to boot. A sigh left his lips as the lips of the woman made contact with his chest, her hands sliding down to the waistband of his jeans, her fingers playing with the button and zip.

Joe. 

Ben’s body went rigid as he realized that he hadn’t once been thinking about the woman who was touching him. He’d been thinking about Joe the entire time, wishing that it was the American touching and kissing him. That he was in some tiny bathroom with his fly undone with his friend, with the one that his very soul was calling out to. 

Guilt ran through him, along with shame and remorse. He vaguely thought that he shouldn’t feel those things. He was not going to be with Joe. He couldn’t. He felt them all the same. He pulled away from the woman whose name he hadn’t even bothered to learn, his hands grabbing her wrists and making them stop touching him.

“I can’t do this..” Ben said as he released her. His hands went to his fly and did up the zip. He was trying to scrub the lipstick away from his mouth as he unlocked the door to escape. She tried to grab on to him, to stop him and demand an explanation. He merely pulled his arm away and snapped, “I said no.”

He walked out to the sound of the girl protesting behind him. He was trying to fix his hair and do up the buttons on his shirt but was having little success with either when he spotted Joe, Gwil, and Rami all at the bar with looks of concern on their faces. 

The three men looked Ben over, with stains still on his neck and his buttons done up haphazardly. Joe felt something stirring deeply inside of him, a green eyed monster that was a foreign feeling to him. Jealousy. Not at Ben for apparently having had a good time, but at whoever it was that had been touching the blond so intimately.

Ben stumbled over to the others, bracing himself heavily on the bar. He looked at Rami and Gwil, his heart not letting him look at Joe right now. “I, ugh... I’m going home. I’ll see you’ll later... yeah,” he let his eyes sweep over the three properly, and his heart shattered at the look on Joe’s face. Oh god, was he going to be sick? Fuck, it felt like he was. He rushed out the place, shouldering people out the way before he broke out into the open city air of London. He took a few steadying breaths, head thrown skyward as he closed his eyes against the unexpected tears. God, he was a jerk. That poor girl hadn’t done anything wrong, they both wanted a good time, but it had felt wrong the moment her lips were on his.

He thought he had made a clean escape, but not two minutes into his lonely, shame filled walk he felt a presence at his side. He had expected maybe Rami, or Gwil to have come after him demanding an explanation to what the hell was wrong with him. He was dead wrong. It was the one person he felt like he truly couldn’t face after what he’d done. With the others, he could make excuses or tell them to piss off. Not Joseph, though. He could never do that to the handsome ginger, despite what he had been about to do back in that loo.

The pair walked in silence for a few minutes, the beginning of it tense, but as they moved it became more comfortable. 

“Her name was Miranda. Randi.” Joe said seemingly out of the blue. He’d been in his own head as they walked, thinking about how he had gotten to this point in his life. It always came back around to when his heart broke. It reminded him of why he shouldn’t get close to Ben the way that his whole being so clearly wanted to.

“Who?” Ben said as he snapped out of his own internal musings, his body unwittingly so attuned to Joe’s voice that it cut through the fog of his thoughts. Who was Randi? The girl in the loo? Had Joe been checking her out too? An agonizing ache ran through his belly and chest at the thought that Joe knew who that woman was. His eyes slid to watch Joe as they walked, his moment of confusion making him fall just slightly behind.

“My ex. The one that I thought was my soulmate.” Joe’s eyes stayed focused ahead of them while he talked, his tone even and measured like every word had to be exact or else he would fall apart. “She was a blank, and I, so very stupidly, thought that it wouldn’t matter. Her skin would stay pure, but her heart would be mine no matter what.” He gave a sidelong glance at Ben who had fallen back into step with the hazel-eyed man. “We were together for two years.” Ben listened as Joe poured out what had happened to him, feeling his own pain echoing with the other man. “Then I get back from filming, and she’s being distant and a little cold. She shied away from intimacy. I just thought it was her own insecurities coming back about being a blank.” Joe turned back to watch the light at the zebra crossing they had stopped at.

He waited until they had crossed the street before he started his story again. “I came back from a meeting with my agent about a week after I’d gotten home. She was getting dressed after a shower and.. I saw it.” Joe smiled, but it was one that was haunted with sadness and anger. “She’d met her soulmate a week after I’d left to film. I was gone for another two months after that. She still texted and called and facetimed with me like everything was normal.” He huffed out a laugh that was devoid of any sort of humor. “She said I deserved better than being told over the phone or by text. I would have gladly taken that over being lied to.”

Ben's hands were deep in his pockets, fingers pressing against the seams as they clenched and unclenched. He listened to Joe, and nodded along, heard the hurt behind the carefully calculated tone and words. It was obvious Joe had really loved this woman, just as he did with Kat. It sounded like he never got closure either, which just made the whole situation worse. “I’m sorry Joe,” Ben started when there was a lull in conversation, hazel eyes now looking at him instead of the cracks in the pavement, “that fucking sucks. And a blank, too... It’s always the hardest with them... sometimes they never get the mark, so it could’ve so easily been you...” Ben kicked a stray rock off the pavement, and heard Joe hum next to him. “So,” Joe cleared his throat from the unshed tears, “Is it true? That yours kind of just... left?” The redhead had seen it plastered all over the gossip magazines, had thought ‘what a poor guy’ before realizing it was his cast mate. And somehow now, it made it worse that it was his supposed soulmate who’d had his heart torn out so horribly.

“Kat and I met in drama school. At a bloody disco of all things. We just got each other right away, and we knew that it was right. But I wasn’t right enough in the end.” Ben reached into his pocket and pulled out his pack of cigarettes and lit one up before he continued to talk. “For nine years I thought that she was the one. One night she went to a hen party for one of her old school mates, and some friend of a friend turned out to be her soulmate.” Ben let out a humorless laugh before taking a deep drag from the cigarette between his fingers. He blew the smoke out away from Joe, knowing that the man despised the habit. “Two fucking weeks before rehearsals started.”

“Holy shit dude.. I don’t even know what to say..” In the distance he could see the lit up sign for the hotel he had been staying at during the filming and knew this conversation would end once they were in front of it.

“She was going to sneak out on me. I only knew it was happening because she broke a vase and woke me up while she was making her escape to fucking Germany with some chick she’d met the night before.” Ben’s own voice had gone monotone, like Joe’s had when he talked about Randi. He hadn’t really spoken to anyone about what had happened with Kat. The tabloids had only speculated and neither Ben nor anyone he knew made any commentary on the matter. Joe was the first person that Ben had truly opened up to about the whole situation, and somehow he felt a rightness in sharing it with the man. Joe felt similarly about talking to the Brit about his own past, like he was supposed to be sharing it with him.

There was a new silence between the two men as they walked. Joe was pointedly not looking at Ben, trying to avoid seeing the wisps and curls of smoke that flowed from the blond’s mouth with every exhale. 

Once they reached the front of the hotel, Ben stubbed out the cigarette and threw it in the trash can sitting outside the door. The two men looked at each other, both wearing near identical smiles that were filled with a slight sadness. 

“Goodnight, Joseph.” Ben said softly, like if he was too loud it would break something between them. Why did he feel like this was the end of a date? The urge to lean forward and press his lips, his hands, his whole body against the other man stabbed through him like a bolt of lightning. He clenched his hands at his sides again, knuckles turning white.

“Goodnight.. Benjamin.” Joe replied with a small smirk. He was fighting his own feelings, hands buried in his jacket pockets, fists clenched just as tightly. “See you tomorrow?”

“Yeah, see you tomorrow,” Ben was already palming the cigarette packet out of his pocket, “I’m... sorry I was an arse tonight”. He glanced up at Joe through his eyelashes, trying to come off nonchalant but heart beating hard in his chest. He wanted Joe to know he was genuinely sorry, he needed his approval, and with bated breath, he waited.

An odd look passed across Joe’s face. Ben was apologizing for the very thing that Joe himself was also trying to do. Joe reached out and grasped Ben’s shoulder. His touch was like a balm to Ben, and helped soothe away the worry that had built in him. “It’s ok Ben. We all make stupid mistakes.” 

As Joe turned away and headed into the building, both men had the same thought. ‘Stupid, stupid, stupid.’ But they couldn’t quite decide what they were being stupid about. Were they stupid for wanting to be with each other? Or were they stupid for fighting against it?

Things went back to what had become the norm after Joe and Ben had confessed their pasts to each other. They had returned to their routine of being friends, but also secretly wishing to be more. However, the tension began to rise as they were fast approaching the day that both men were looking to with a hint of fear. They knew it was coming, had months upon months to prepare but neither one felt at ease about it.

This was going to be a big moment of the movie, where the growing tension between members of the band would be made apparent, but also highlight that even when they were fighting they were still artists who wanted to create music. It was also the scene that depicted the birth of what would be one of Queen’s most recognizable and beloved hits.

It was going to be absolute torture for one Ben Hardy. He was going to be subjected to the same nine notes over and over and over again, and there would be no way to escape without seeming like a bloody lunatic. He was pretty sure that this was his own personal version of hell. His nerves were so on edge as Joe was made to play those infamous notes over and over again. Sometimes it was him, and sometimes it was playback. Either way, it made his hands shake and his nerves stand on edge. Even the copious amounts of nicotine he was inhaling was doing nothing to ease any of the tension that was growing in him. 

The blond had been basically chain smoking between takes, his head swirling around with thought after thought. His soul was twisted up in anguish as it was subjected to the sounds of the song that was supposed to signify when it found its match. Every time he looked at Joe between takes, it felt like he was getting punched in the gut. Joe was wearing a similar expression to his own, half filled with panic, half filled with pain.

Joe had started the day with the tiniest bit of confidence. That confidence was torn into about a million itty bitty pieces the first time his fingers danced along the strings of the bass and he saw Ben’s whole body go rigid. How could Joe be such an idiot? He guessed that there was a tiny fraction of himself that hoped that Ben would be able to cope with the music by now, but he had been oh so very wrong. He watched as with each take, the blond’s nerves began to fray so obviously to everyone in the room. Even worse, when Ben was nervous, he smoked. Of all of the things that Joe had divulged to the man who was supposed to be his soulmate, he’d never mentioned what exactly his own mark was. 

The smoke that curled and twisted out of the brit’s mouth as he lit and puffed away at cigarette after cigarette looked exactly like those lines he had kept hidden from Ben. Maybe they really did look like that, or maybe it was just Joe’s subconscious making it look that way. In either case, it was driving Joe stir crazy. His hands fumbled over the instrument he held, clammy and shaking. He was doing that to Ben. ‘My Ben,’ the sudden thought curved through Joe’s mind. He was the one causing that pain and anguish. The redhead felt a shudder run through his body as guilt and heartbreak wracked his very soul. How could he do that to Ben? Ben was his soulmate.

It hit Joe like a mile long trainwreck. For just a moment, Joe forgot that there were cameras trained on him. There were no other people; no actors, and no crew.. It was just him, Ben, the winding smoke, and the guitar in his hands.

Joe’s eyes looked to the bass he held it clutched in a near death grip in his hands while he sat on the drum riser. With a deep breath and a steely resolve he looked up, straight into the depthless green eyes of the man he couldn’t deny he loved anymore. As Ben watched Joe, he saw the challenge in the ginger’s hazel eyes when they locked with his. The auburn haired man moved his fingers with deliberate care as he plucked the same nine notes he had been playing all morning. This time the riff was Joe’s admission, and his plea to Ben without uttering a single word. The absolute last shred of control that Ben possessed snapped in that moment as the final note rang through the room and whispered through Ben’s body. 

Ben rushed forward, and everything around them faded away. It was as if there were no other people, no cameras, no crew, nothing except for the two of them. Ben’s hands grasped either side of Joe’s face with surprising gentility and their lips met in a kiss that was sloppy, but passionate. It wasn’t chaste in any sense of the word, because it was fueled by need and desire and above all else the feeling of two souls finally merging. Neither one cared that the kiss tasted like salt as tears flowed freely from both of them. Joe’s arms wrapped around Ben and his hands fisted into the material of the jacket he wore, clinging to his soulmate like his life depended on it. They poured emotion into each other with every press of lips, each flick of their tongues and every little nip.

They were so wrapped up in each other that neither one heard the sounds of cheers that rang up around them as the cast and crew celebrated the collective removal of both men’s heads from their asses. The applauds and whistles and hooting trailed off after a few moments when it became clear the two had no intention of separating any time soon. 

The air was filled with the sound of discordant vibrations as Ben climbed onto Joe’s lap, straddling the man with the guitar still wedged between the pair. Ben’s lower stomach was rubbing against the bass’ strings, making those weird little notes and vibrations hum through the amp. The noises became more rhythmic as Joe and Ben’s hips started to roll against each other with urgency. Joe’s hands released the back of his soulmate’s jacket and travelled down to grip tightly to the man’s butt, pulling him in even tighter. The whole time, they kept their lips together, pausing for half seconds to breathe only to attack each other with even more need than before.

Ben suddenly felt hands on his shoulders. They weren’t Joe’s hands, he knew that for sure. His soulmate’s hands were still firmly gripping onto his backside, and Ben wished there wasn’t so much clothing separating the two. He whined against Joe’s lips as those hands at his shoulders pulled on him, his body instinctively pressing harder against Joe and the bass. His arms flailed out as they tried to wrap around Joe’s shoulders, only to be caught by another set of hands. There was only instinct and need right now. The need to feel every inch of Joe pressed against him and these hands were trying to take him away from that. He let out a loud yelp when he was suddenly yanked back and off of Joe’s lap.

Joe let out a similar whining noise at the sudden absence of Ben’s warmth against him. Both men were panting deeply, their breaths shuddering in their chests as their eyes stayed glued to one another. After a moment, Joe felt a slight sting in his lower lip and when he lapped his tongue against the feeling there was the slight coppery taste of blood.

Joe felt a pair of arms wrapped around his upper arms and he broke his eyes from Ben to see that Rami had his own arms locked around Joe in a vice like grip, probably to keep Joe from pouncing up after Ben. His soulmate had two people holding him, Gwil and one of the cameramen he thought absently. Joe saw how Ben’s eyes flicked to his lips and a look of guilt crossed the blond’s face when he saw that Joe was bleeding a little bit.

“I’m sorry Joe, let me kiss it better.” The look of guilt was replaced with a smirk that had Joe’s insides doing backflips.

“Ok Romeos, it’s wonderful that you two have finally come to your senses, but in case you didn’t know we still have a movie to film.” Gwil said as he clung to one of Ben’s arms in a bear hug. “You can save all the lovey dovey snogging for later, where I can’t see it.”

Green eyes met hazel, and the biggest, dopiest grins appeared on the men’s faces. There would be snogging, and oh so much more as both men made a mental note to stop at the drugstore after filming stopped for the day.


	4. Call Me Your Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joe and Ben have finally given in to the call of their souls. After months of bottling everything up, and sexual tension, everything spills out in a night of passion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you Just_Call_Me_Floss for a) being the best co-author ever, and b) putting up with my weird random questions.
> 
> And now it's time for the smut!

The entire crew treated Ben and Joe like they were animals on the edge, carefully observing and occasionally pulling the pair apart when it seemed like they were going to get too close for comfort. There were points where Rami, Gwil, and the rest of the crew almost wished that Joe and Ben hadn’t finally given in. Almost.

When the director had called it on the day’s filming, it took every ounce of restraint in both Ben and Joe to not dash off immediately without even bothering to get rid of the wigs or changing into their street clothes. Where normally they would stick around to hang out with their friends after getting rid of the outdated clothing, and uncomfortable wigs to talk over the day, Ben and Joe rushed out with the quickest of “See you tomorrow’s” to everyone they passed as soon as they were given the go ahead. The head of the makeup department gave a long suffering sigh as the trailer door shut behind the men, and made a note to buy more foundation tomorrow because she knew she would be using most of it first thing in the morning.

The second they left the trailer behind, their hands reached out to interlace their fingers together. It was an anchor for both of them. They felt like if they didn’t hold on to each other, they might just float away. Ben called up a cab for them, and they stood anxiously, wrapping their arms around each other and whispering about filming to distract themselves. When the taxi arrived, Ben gave the driver the address for the pharmacy that was a couple of blocks away from his flat with a small slightly shy grin being directed at Joe afterwards. 

Joe felt heat creep up into his cheeks as he remembered that he had the same thought earlier in the day. The two men rode in mostly silence, Ben pointing out different landmarks and shops along the way to Joe. Joe did perk up when Ben mentioned a tea room that he used to go to with a grin across his face. They pulled up to the pharmacy a couple of minutes after that, and Ben hastily paid the driver, not really bothering to count the notes he passed over more than to ensure that there was more than what the meter said. The pair exited the car and ran into the pharmacy, giggling like a couple of teenagers as they made their way through the cramped aisles until they found the sexual health section.

Matching blushes rose up on the pair’s cheeks and ears as they picked out the things they would need with more seriousness than they’d had moments before. This was real. It was happening. They were picking up condoms and lube because they were going to join together in body now that they had accepted the bonding of their souls.

The severity of the situation was uplifted when they emerged from the store with the small bag in hand, and Joe took Ben’s hand in his own again, eyes meeting and making that heat return to them in full force. Ben nearly pulled his soulmate down the sidewalk as he led him down the streets that would take them home.

Ben hardly had his key in the door before he’s being pushed through it by his very eager other half. Managing somehow to unlock his flat and get in, the door was slammed behind him and he was pushed up against it. He would’ve moaned, if given the chance, but as it was, Joe stole his breath away with a heated kiss.

Their noses pushed awkwardly together and lips nipped with teeth, the soulmates’ hands started wondering, familiarising themselves with the body of the one that they were meant to be with. Ben quickly found out his favourite place to hold is Joe’s hips, while the American had an adoration with pulling the blond curls.

They stayed as connected as they could be while they shrugged off their jackets and shoes. Ben flicked Joe’s hat from his head just so he could run his fingers through the frizzy curls there. The perm didn’t detract from Joe’s looks, and in fact, it was a sign of Joe’s commitment to his craft which in itself was a trait that Ben loved about the man. They stumbled down the hallway, hands, lips and teeth touching and caressing everything that they could reach.

By the time they reached the bedroom, Ben’s shirt had already been tossed aside. They’d almost taken a tumble through the living room doorway as Joe was more preoccupied with feeling every inch of the blond’s smooth pale skin than where the pair were going. Ben gently pushed Joe down onto the edge of the bed, and straddled his lap like he had earlier on set. This time, they really were alone, and there wasn’t a bass guitar rammed between them.

Joe took Ben’s hand in his, and brought it up to kiss each of the younger man’s knuckles, while Ben’s free hand ran fingertips up and down the side of the redhead’s neck. Now that they were here, they took a moment to slow down and truly study each other. As strong as the hormones were, they didn’t want to rush too quickly into the deep end. Joe pulled Ben’s strong forearm up and he eyed the notes there with a newfound appreciation, taking the time to memorize every single inch of it. His eyes flicked up to see that Ben was watching him with rapt attention, a curiosity in his gaze. Joe planted a kiss to part of the mark and raised a questioning eyebrow.

“Where’s your mark? I’ve never seen it.” Ben asked quietly. His strong hands moved over Joe’s clothed torso, fingertips brushing over the fabric like he’d be able to tell where it was just by feeling it.

Heat flushed up into Joe’s cheeks, ears and neck at Ben’s question. He could almost feel his pulse throbbing at the spot just over his hip bone where the curls were etched into him. “It’s beneath my shirt. I never changed in front of you or the others, so they don’t know what it is either. It’s not somewhere I generally show to the public.”

“Come on Joe, you’ve seen mine, I should see yours,” Ben teased with a smirk, fingers curling against the bottom of the redheads shirt.

“Can’t we keep the shirt on?” Joe kept the fabric from riding up and looked up at Ben with wide eyes. He felt self conscious of the mark, although he knew this time it was right, but Ben actually seeing what his mark was what made Joe nervous.

“If you want, I guess,” Ben stopped pulling and leant in to kiss Joe softly on the lips, “You have to be comfortable”

“Yeah,” Joe nodded as he mumbled the word against the plump lips of his soulmate. His heart was hammering, and oddly, the sweetness of the kiss, the caring look in Ben's eyes made him feel like he *should* show him the mark. It was the mark which led to him after all. “Ben...” he sighed, and pulled away, “Alright, I’ll show you...”

Ben started trying to backtrack, insisting he didn’t need to see it, but Joe was determined now, and off came the top.

Green eyes appreciated the well shaped man in front of him - just the right amount of muscle to show off his lean physique, a light dusting of freckles over his collarbones and shoulder, defined pectoral muscles and a dusting of pubic hair leading down temptingly. But right next to his hip bone was a few lines, swirling upward like smoke. Smoke like a cigarette.

“Oh...” he reached a hand forward and gently brushed over the lines which led them here. His last exhale of smoke of his last life with Kat led him to meet his soulmate. “So every time.. I lit one up..?” Ben said questioningly as his eyes moved back up to Joe’s face.

Joe nodded in response, and had to take a deep breath before he could speak again. His hands ran along Ben’s upper arms, over his shoulders, and stopped to rest on the muscular chest. Joe could feel the blond’s heart beating beneath his palms, the feeling was calming even as Ben’s heart raced. “Yes.. it was like seeing me holding the bass guitar for you. Hearing that riff.” 

Ben’s hand wrapped around Joe’s hip, and his thumb pressed into the mark and rubbed gentle circles over it. He leaned in and pressed their lips together again, but this time the kiss was sweet and slow. Their lips moved together gently, tongues exploring at a leisurely pace. Ben pulled away for a moment and tapped at Joe’s shoulder, urging him to scoot back. Joe pushed himself further back onto the bed with the blond following him up until the redhead was laid out on his back, head on the pillows with his lover hovering over him.

Ben leaned down and began to press gentle kisses against Joe’s neck. When he reached the junction between Joe’s neck and shoulder, he grinned against the ginger’s skin and then bit down on the spot. Joe jumped slightly, and let out a small groan while his hands thread into the blond curls of the man above him. Ben soothed over the spot with his tongue before sucking on the skin. The brit’s hands moved up and down along Joe’s rib cage, fingers dancing along the surface and then further down to the waistband of Joe’s pants.

Ben felt, more than heard, Joe’s breath hitch at the location of his hands and what was going to happen next. The blond began the slow and pleasurable task of making his way down his lover’s body, his mouth worshipping every available inch of skin along the way. He took a few moments to tease each of Joe’s nipples, tugging them between his teeth gently before living them with his tongue before continuing the exploration of Joe’s torso. He paid special attention to the mark above Joe’s hipbone, Ben’s green eyes turning up to meet Joe’s hazel ones as he pressed his lips against the marked skin. There was a promise in the touch of his lips against the mark, one that would be unbreakable.

Ben’s lips pressed a kiss in the light dusting of reddish brown hair that peeked out just above the waistband of Joe’s pants before his slightly trembling hands unbuttoned and unzipped them. His breath was warm against Joe’s boxer covered crotch when he tugged the denim down, the redhead lifting up his butt to help the process. Joe’s fists were curled up in the sheets of the bed, his breath shuddering with every rise and fall of his chest. They were both filled to the brim with nervous energy, even with the rightness of what they were doing.

Ben tugged the jeans fully off of Joe’s body along with the man’s socks and tossed them all off to the side of the room into a pile of other laundry that had gathered. He looked back up at Joe, silently asking if everything was ok and received a small nod in return. Joe let out a breath he didn’t know he had been holding when Ben tugged the elastic band of his boxers down, and groaned quietly as the cool air brushed across his already erect cock. 

The blond’s eyes stayed trained on Joe’s crotch, taking in the size and length of it. Ben had only ever been intimate with one guy before back when he was in secondary school. Joe definitely blew that guy out of the water in the size department. It was thick and drooling precum, the head stopping only an inch or so short of his naval as it laid against his stomach. Ben licked his lips and flicked his eyes up at Joe before giving one of those smirks that meant he was up to no good.

Joe’s head slammed back against the pillows, and his eyes rolled up in his head just a little when he felt Ben’s warm, wet tongue lick a stripe from the base of his cock to the very tip, lapping up a bit of the precum that had gathered there. The day Joe walked into the rehearsal space he never in his wildest dreams thought that he would end up here, with his soulmate’s mouth and hands on his cock, and was Ben fucking Hardy to boot. His thought process was stopped in its tracks when Ben’s hand wrapped around the base of him and his lips around the leaking head. His hands released the sheets and moved to tangle in Ben’s wavy blond locks, anchoring himself to the brit. Ben’s cheeks hollowed as he sucked gently, letting his tongue tip dip against the slit of Joe’s cock. Ben had only ever sucked the one guy’s cock in his past and he remembered the basics he’d struggled through back then and thought about the kinds of things he knew he liked. 

Ben slowly lowered his head down a couple of inches before pulling back up, his green eyes turned up to watch Joe’s reaction. There were little sighs and mewls of pleasure escaping his soulmate’s lips as he worked him in and out of his mouth, never venturing down more than two or three inches at a time. His hand worked in time with his mouth, stroking the pulsing erection in his slightly calloused fingers.

Joe’s mind couldn’t string together a coherent thought as Ben’s mouth worked him so thoroughly. He wasn’t sure if it was the soulmate bond making things feel so good, or if the brit was just that naturally talented and Joe really didn’t care. He felt heat coiling through him with every pass of Ben’s tongue and lips on him, and he knew that he wasn’t going to last much longer. The months of pent up tension between the two had his body achingly needy and rushing towards the release it could gain. He lifted his head to look down his body and watched as part of his cock disappeared into his lover’s mouth and he let out a choked groan when a rush of pleasure ran through him, pushing him ever closer to the edge.

“Fuck..” He cursed out under his breath, causing Ben to look up with lust blown pupils. “Stop, please.. Ugh.. I’m gonna.. I don’t want to.. Not yet..” His words were breathy and his hands gently tugged on Ben’s hair to pull him away from his straining cock. The way the blond looked after he pulled away from Ben’s cock was downright sinful. There was a string of saliva still connecting his mouth to Joe’s cock, his pink lips slightly swollen and wet all on a face that looked like it belonged to an angel. Ben licked his lips and ran his hands over Joe’s thighs and hips in a soothing way, keeping contact with Joe in a less stimulating way to allow the ginger to pull back from the edge. 

“What do you want, love?” Ben spoke softly while his hands kept caressing his lover, and the pet name made Joe’s already pounding heart skip a beat. 

Joe sat up, resting back on his elbows and he remembered that Ben was still more than halfway clothed. “For starters, I want to see and feel all of you..” Heat crept up in Joe’s cheeks as he made the request which only drew a smile from the blond man. He withdrew completely from the bed, much to Joe’s disappointment. Joe’s breath caught in his chest again when Ben quickly shucked off his own jeans, underwear and socks, revealing the rest of the man’s beautifully sculpted body. Ben had abs for days, and cut definition everywhere including that little vee of muscles that guided the eye to his groin. Even Ben’s dick looked like it had been carved from marble.

Joe could not fathom just how intensely lucky he was that this man was his soulmate, chosen just for him by the universe. Ben smirked, seeing the clear admiration and affection written all over Joe’s face and his own eyes travelled along the redhead’s form giving him the same treatment. He bit his lip as he crawled up the bed again, coming to rest at Joe’s side facing towards him. Joe turned over in his spot so that they were facing each other, and reached a hand out to trace along Ben’s jaw with a single fingertip, following the line down the side of his neck, over his collarbone, and his sternum before pressing his hand against the steady, but quick, thrum of Ben’s heart. 

They surged forward again as desire pushed them together, their lips colliding again. Their arms pulled each other on so that their torsos were flush against each other, legs entertained and they let out a collective gasp when their receptions pressed together. Their hips rolled, giving them the friction they both craved. Joe’s hand went down to the blond’s ass and grasped one cheek, holding Ben’s groin tight against his own while he ground against his lover. His lips trailed kisses along the Brit’s neck, biting and licking over the tender spot just below his ear and against his pulse point.

“I need to be inside you baby.” Joe’s breath was warm, and his voice husky as he whispered into his lover’s ear just before giving the lobe a gentle nip. The affectionate term did the same thing to Ben as him calling Joe ‘love.’

Ben felt a slight shot of nervousness wash through him at the prospect of having a dick inside of him, but he also felt the firm way Joe held on to him and the softness of the man’s lips against his skin. This was his soulmate. He would never do anything that Ben wasn’t comfortable with, and he would keep Ben safe.

Ben pulled back from Joe, the other man giving a small sound of protest at the absence of his lover’s body against his. “You’re not going to do it dry, love.” He said with a cheeky grin as he hopped off the bed and jogged out of the room. 

‘Oh yeah.. the lube and condoms.’ Joe thought through the haze of pleasure he was in. He vaguely remembered dropping the bag by the front door when they’d come inside while they were hastily removing clothing. The flat wasn’t very big, so it had only taken a very motivated Ben about a minute to find and bring back the little bag. 

Ben set the bag on the nightstand next to the bed and leaned over to press another kiss to his soulmate’s lips. He reached into the bag, and pulled out the bottle of lube they’d bought. He crawled back onto the bed, pressing the stuff into Joe’s hands. He took a shuddering breath and laid out on his back next to Joe, his legs spread open and waiting. It was an unspoken understanding that they wanted to see each other for this moment.

Joe slowly moved to kneel between Ben’s thighs, sitting back on his heels so that he could take in the sight of his blond soulmate laid out before him. His free hand slid along one of his lover’s strong thighs, shivering at the thought of them wrapping around him. “Tell me if anything is too much, ok?” He said softly when he had pulled himself together enough to pop open the top of the lube. 

Ben chewed on his bottom lip, leaning back on his hands as his fingers curled in the sheets. Subconsciously, he spread his legs wider, and nodded at Joe’s request. He shivered as he felt a slicked up finger running up his thigh, and he readjusted his hips to make it easier. “Oh... oh,” Ben sighed as he felt Joe push in, licking his lips a little unsure of the feeling to begin with, kind of feeling disjointed from the rest of his body, but he couldn’t tear his eyes off of his other half’s face. 

Joe was watching him, watching for any discomfort, and as they looked deeply into each other's eyes, it was like another piece of their souls slotted together. Both gasped as Joe pressed further inside, Ben clenching on Joe's digit for a moment as his tongue darted out to wet his lips again. It was starting to feel good now, pleasurable, and he sighed out Joe's name, untangling one hand from the crumpled duvet to run over the mess of a perm.

“You can, umm, move a bit faster,” Ben felt a blush rising on his cheeks. He’d sucked a guy off before, a couple times behind the bikesheds as confused hormones rode high in highschool, but that was as far as his gay adventures had gone - until now. As another finger wiggled in, the Brit keened, throwing his head back a bit and shifting his hips down. “Fuck,” he moaned, lips open and panting as the drop dead gorgeous American between his legs started to scissor him open. It was like they were tuned in to each other's frequencies, as any time one of them made a noise, the other would complete it.

“You look so beautiful, Benny.” Joe said softly as he watched the brit roll his hips against Joe’s fingers, feeling the muscles clench and release around the digits with each push and pull. His eyes moved back up to Ben’s which were half lidded, his lips parted as he whimpered and mewled in pleasure. “I want to be inside of you, baby. Are you ready for me?”

Ben’s mind took a few moments before registering what Joe had said. He was so lost in the feeling of his other half’s fingers inside of him, the way the pads rubbed against the inner walls, and how they stretched him when they scissored open. His answer was a nod of his head and a thrust of his hips when he thought about the idea of Joe’s cock being inside of him. His own dick twitched at the prospect, a bit of precum leaking out of the tip.

Joe bit on his own lip, and felt a shudder run down his spine at seeing how eager his lover was to join with him. With hesitancy, Joe pulled his digits out of Ben causing his soulmate to groan at the loss of the touch. The redhead reached over to the bag on the nightstand and pulled out the box of condoms they had picked out. His hands shook slightly as he opened up the box and tore off one of the shiny silver packets. He felt his breathing become more uneven as nerves began to get the better of him. He’d never done this before, not with a man at least.

Sensing his tension, Ben’s large hands grasped at Joe’s hips with his thumbs rubbing at the bones in soothing circles, one over the black mark it was touching. “It’s ok, love.” Ben said in a voice that was laced with both lust and adoration. “You won’t hurt me. I’m tougher than I look.” He said with a slightly dopey grin. This made Joe laugh. Ben Hardy looked like an angel, yes, but he was a jacked angel. Filled with strength in every muscle, and beauty in every dip and curve. 

He tore open the foil, and somewhat clumsily managed to roll the condom onto himself, Ben’s hands still rubbing at his hips the whole time. The redhead picked the bottle of lube from where he’d dropped it on the bed, and poured more over his cock rubbing it over himself with a slight groan. Joe leaned forward, one hand steadying himself next to Ben’s shoulder and the other gripped tight at the base of his cock while he guided himself into Ben’s entrance. Ben hissed out a breath when he felt the push and stretch of the head of Joe’s cock into his body, the feeling so much more intense than that of the ginger’s fingers. Joe stopped moving once the head had made it past the tight ring of muscle, his eyes searching Ben’s face for confirmation. Ben’s hands slid up along Joe’s sides until he gripped his lover’s shoulders tightly, bracing himself. 

“More..” Ben said on a breathy gasp, his legs moved up and wrapped around Joe’s waist, making him sink a couple more inches into Ben. Joe’s eyes fluttered as more of Ben engulfed him, the feeling warm and tight and like he was coming home. Ben cried out gently as more of him was stretched open, but it was a cry of pleasure. There was pain, of course, but it was a pittance compared to the feeling of fullness and joy he felt as Joe kept pushing into him. Joe’s hand let go of his own cock once he was sure he was far enough into Ben that he wouldn’t slip out. He set his hand next to Ben’s other shoulder, and stared down into his lover’s eyes. There was need glinting in Ben’s eyes along with desperation.

The blond’s hips rolled up against Joe’s as he kept sinking into him. Once Joe was fully seated in Ben, his hips flush against the backs of Ben’s thighs, he stilled, even though every part of him was screaming out to move and claim what was his. 

They were both breathless, clinging onto each other as they felt everything all at once. It was as if they’d met for the first time all over again. Of course, some soulmates never have sex, it’s not like an important thing to happen, but it’s a mind blowing experience. Ben's whole body twitched and shivered as he let out a pleasured moan, never feeling more present than this moment. He’d thought he’d found the one all those years ago, but there was no denying now that this is his life partner. Joe couldn’t stop his lips moving, kissing over Ben's neck and jaw and cheeks and nose and forehead and where he can reach.

Joe’s reassuring kisses made Ben want to cry. Joe was being so sweet and tender with him, even though he knew Joe was aching to move. “I’m ready,” Ben said softly before pressing his own lips to his lover’s, hips rolling and causing pleasure to shoot through them both at the friction. Joe wasted no time in complying with Ben’s words. He pulled back his hips a few inches before sliding forward again. Both men let out lewd groans into each other’s mouths, their bodies shaking with bliss.

Joe repeated the motion, a little more force behind his thrust, and hearing the sounds that came from his lover’s mouth and feeling the way the blond’s fingers gripped his shoulders and his heels digging into his backside spurred him on. The pair quickly found a steady rhythm, as if they had been doing this their entire lives, their bodies fitting together as much as their hearts and souls did. They both knew that they weren’t going to last very long, their bottled up desire was overflowing now that they had caved in to it. 

It felt both too soon and too long by the time they could feel themselves close to edge, racing to fall over the cliff into oblivion. “Benny, baby… I’m not gonna last.. ungh.. much longer.” It was a small miracle that Joe had been able to speak at all, he was so lost in Ben’s eyes and in his body. His thrusts had become more erratic while his body chased down his orgasm.

“Love, please..” Ben pleaded with Joe, his own hips bucking, causing him to gasp and mewl out when his cock brushed against Joe’s stomach. Understanding crossed Joe’s face and he reached down between them to wrap his hand around Ben’s leaking cock, the feeling so familiar and foreign at the same time. It was hard and velvety as he stroked it firmly, urging his soulmate on.

It didn’t take long for Ben to cry out, repeating Joe’s name over and over again, sputtering curses as his back arched up off of the bed, his dick twitching in Joe’s grasp as his cum splashed out over Joe’s fist and his own stomach and chest. Ben’s walls clenched around Joe’s and the ginger’s eyes rolled back in his head when he let out a wordless shout, his hips thrusting once, twice, three more times before his body stilled. He felt his cock pulsing as he spilled his release into the condom.

Both men were floating up in the stratosphere for a few blissful moments before they came back down, Joe’s arms going a bit noodly, shaking as they tried to keep him held up above Ben. He pulled his hips back, causing the Brit to whimper and shudder as his body clenched around nothing. Joe finally collapsed, Ben’s legs still wrapped around his waist, and buried his sweaty face against Ben’s neck. Their torsos were pressed against one another as they panted, hearts beating in a frantic, perfectly matched rhythm against one another.

They basked in the silent afterglow, the blond wrapping his arms around Joe and holding on tight to him, and wishing this moment would never end. Joe pressed a kiss against Ben’s neck and then another to his jaw and chin before planting one more chaste kiss to his lover’s lips. A shy smile crossed the hazel-eyed man’s face as he looked down at Ben, his expression still a little bit dopey. 

“As much I love this view,” Joe murmured as he lightly rubbed the tip of his nose against Ben’s, “I think a clean up is in order.” Ben stuck out his full lower lip in a pout, his body wriggling beneath his soulmate’s, hands pressing firmly against Joe’s back in a silent little beg. One side of Joe’s lips tilted up, and he leaned down to whisper into Ben’s ear. “I’ll scrub every. Single. Inch of you.” His breath was hot against the blond’s ear, and it sent a shiver of anticipation along his spine.

“Is that a promise?” Ben said as an even bigger smile graced his lips.


	5. Love Me Through The Pain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben and Joe thought that the hard part was over. They'd finally come together, giving in to the pull of their souls, but unfortunately that didn't mean that the world would be sunshine and rainbows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All aboard the angst train, destination Hardzzello. (Why can't we just let the sweet beans be happy???)

It was very apparent the next day as Ben and Joe strolled onto set what the two had been up to the night before after they had practically ran from the set. Both men wore blissed out expressions that bordered on creepily happy, had several visible bite marks and bruises littering their necks, Joe was wearing clothing that obviously belonged to Ben, and Ben himself was walking with a small but noticeable limp. 

“Have either of you seen the news this morning?” Rami said as all four were in the makeup trailer, each of them getting wigs and makeup put on for the day’s shooting. Ben and Joe each had an extra hand working on them that day, made necessary by the visual signs of their previous night’s activities.

Ben and Joe both answered with a sheepish, “No.” That morning, both of them had been in a rush to leave Ben’s flat in a bid to make it to set on time after having woken up in each other’s arms and noticed that they both had pressing issues rubbing up against each other. They’d barely had time to shower, grab quick cups of coffee and scarf down some toast before hailing a cab to the set.

“You two made headlines.” Gwil said with a smile, and then a wince as another pin was shoved into the wig adorning his head. Ben picked up his phone from where it sat on the counter in front of him, opened up google and typed in his own name and Joe’s. The first thing that popped up in the search results was a photograph of him and his soulmate from the day before as they left the studio. Paparazzi were always hanging about, trying to get candid shots of the cast as they came and went. It was dark out, but the picture clearly showed him and Joe with their arms wrapped around each other, infectiously happy grins on their faces as they whispered to each other while waiting for their cab. The caption beneath read,

‘Ben Hardy and Joe Mazzello spotted outside the studio.’

More pictures and posts popped up as the man scrolled down, Joe peeking over as best he could while still getting the wig and makeup applied to him. Each picture was as telling as the last, arms around each other, wandering hands, and silly smiles everywhere.

‘Ben Hardy over his broken heart?’

‘Love on the set of BoRhap?’

Joe and Ben had completely forgotten that they could be seen when they left the day before. They had been so eager to get back to Ben’s place to continue what they had been so rudely interrupted doing earlier that everything else had just seemed unimportant.

“Ah fuck!” Ben exclaimed. As much as his heart wanted to jump for joy at the prospect of shouting that Joseph Francis Mazzello the Third was his soulmate from the rooftops, he hadn’t even had the wherewithal to tell his own family yet. “I have to call my mum. Like now.” He stood up, much to the protest of the crew members working on him, and hauled ass out of the trailer after planting a sweet kiss to Joe’s lips. 

The fact that his mother hadn’t called him yet gave Ben hope that she hadn’t seen the news yet. He knew that if she had, his phone would have been blowing up with calls and texts from her, his dad and sister to demand an explanation. His mum answered after a couple of rings. She’d barely had time to say, “Hello sweetie, How are you?” Before Ben blurted out,

“John Deacon is my soulmate!”

Ben could swear he felt his mum’s confusion and concern through the connection.

“Ben, that was cute when you were a child but as an adult it’s a little disturbing..”

Ben let out a huff and continued, “No mum, I mean the guy who is playing John Deacon is my soulmate. It’s Joe Mazzello. I wanted to tell you before you saw the tabloids.”

There was a bit of hesitancy in her voice when she spoke, worry lacing each word, “You’re sure about this, Ben?” His mum knew that Ben had been devastated after Kat had left him. How could she not? Every word she’s heard from him after it had happened had sounded hollow and defeated and she didn’t want her baby boy to suffer like that again.

“Yes, mum. I know it. It’s real this time. I.. felt it the day we met. But Joe and I.. we both stupidly fought against it.” Ben confessed to his mother. She, of all people, deserved to know the truth about what had happened. She was the one who’d watched her son spiral after the heartbreak.

There was a moment of silence on the other end of the phone before he heard his mother yelling to his dad and sister, the words faint and he could only hear something about him and ‘found his soulmate, no really it’s the guy playing the Queen bassist in that movie he’s working on!’ on the other end of the line.

“Gotta go mum, work calls!” He shouted into the phone with a giant grin on his face before pressing the button to end the call.

Before Joe could call his own family, he was flooded with texts from them, each one filled with both joy and confusion. Joe’d never shown an inkling for liking men, so it was a bit of shock to his parents and siblings when they’d seen the photos of him and Ben together. It had been Joe’s mother who had brought the more.. negative.. press to the men’s attention.

‘Is the budding romance between Ben Hardy and Joe Mazzello a true love story or just a publicity stunt?’ 

It was a lesser known fact that John Deacon and Roger Taylor were soulmates as well. They’d always kept it out of the public eye, but had never denied the accusations when they were brought forth by the press. Some papers were saying that Joe and Ben’s relationship was just a way to build up hype for the movie. The two could deal with that press. It was just a bunch of idiots who thought it was too big of a coincidence to be real.

It was the assholes who dragged up Ben’s past that made all four of the BoRhap boys see red.

Although it was hurting him, Ben couldn’t stop. He kept scrolling, seeing accusation after fake claim, people telling stories that just *weren't true*. He was pulled deep into the stories, the same damn photo being used over and over again. It was him outside that damned pub, covered in marks and half undressed. Taken from over the road, it was undoubtedly him, even with his head skyward. His phone had blown up the moment he turned it on, notifications and texts blocking his screen for a few minutes as everything came crashing in. 

He’d just started his break and thought it’d be great to unwind with his phone. Being led online, it hadn’t taken Ben long to see why everyone he knew was freaking out. Tabloids were claiming he was faking his soulmate. He’d choked on a sob when he’d first seen that, and the tears hadn’t been far behind. “Ben? What’s going on?” Lucy was quickly on her knees in front of her friend who looked sick. She wiped the tears from his cheeks when shocked green eyes looked up at her. His phone was pushed into her hands, and she gasped at what she saw. 

“T-they say it’s all fake,” usually such a sure voice, the quiver in Ben's accent broke Lucy’s heart. She couldn’t pull her eyes from the screen, feeling numb at the horrid words. Comments under the articles seemed to be agreeing with the claims. “Say that ‘m only doing this to get back at-at Kat,” running his hands through his hair, he lets out a whine and doubles over, his head coming to rest on Lucy’s shoulder as he cried out in anguish. “People are saying I’m a sex addict, that... there’s claims saying that I’ve shagged half of London”

Joe was sorting some stuff out with the crew when he suddenly felt himself go cold, overwhelmed with an emotion he wasn’t currently feeling. “Uhh, excuse me, just... just give me a moment,” he stopped the conversation and stepped away, letting his unsteady legs move him without him thinking. What was going on? He felt like crying. This wasn’t him, no, he didn’t know what was going on. “Shit,” he muttered to himself, and he broke into a run. It felt like an eternity until he was at the break room, but really it was 20 heart thumping seconds until he burst into the room. He felt like he was ripped in half when he heard the devastating sound of his soulmates sob, a sound he’d hoped to have never heard. His blood was like fire consuming him, wanting whatever it was that was making Ben like this stop, and in a second he was grabbing onto his Ben, pulling him against him and not letting anyone else near. He didn’t know what was going on but he knew already it had to stop. Now.

Ben’s face was pressed into Joe’s neck, his sobs becoming quieter by the second as his soulmate held him in his arms. Joe being there didn’t erase all of the anguish and pain, but knowing that his other half was with him made it easier to bear. Ben’s hands clutched Joe’s shirt in his fists so tight he was half afraid he might rip the fabric.

“Shhh, it’s ok baby. I’m right here, you’re ok. I’ve got you. Everything is going to be fine.” Joe still had no idea what had set his lover off, but it didn’t matter right then. All that mattered was making Ben feel better. He turned his head to see Lucy looking down at Ben’s phone clutched in her hands, with a look of seething rage that could have made the devil himself take a step back.

“What’s going on?” He asked quietly. He really wanted to run his fingers through Ben’s hair. It was something he loved to do, and had found that it was something that Ben thought was comforting. The wig that was pinned to his lover’s hair made that impossible at the moment though, so he made do with rubbing circles against his back.

“Some bleeding arseholes on the internet thought it would be ok to say the vilest shit about you two.” She growled through her teeth, sounding a lot like an angry mother bear at the moment. Another sob wracked through Ben at those words, and Joe placed a hand against the back of the brit’s neck, holding him more firmly against him with the hope that his steady heartbeat would help keep Ben calm. He held out his hand to Lucy, the meaning clear. She stepped forward carefully and held the device out, dropping it in the ginger’s hand before backing away again. She didn’t want to be in the radius when the on edge american saw what had set his soulmate off the deep end.

Ben had calmed down now, at least enough that he was no longer sobbing into Joe’s neck, and his hands rested flat against the redhead instead of fisted in his shirt. Contrary to what everyone in the room thought, Joe did not burst into a fit of anger, nor did he start crying as his soulmate had. As his fingers scrolled down the page, his lips set into a grim line, and his brow furrowed with each sentence he read.

The fury didn’t burst forth in red hot fire. It came in an icy cold wave that was frankly even scarier than if he had started to rage around breaking things. At least if he went on a bender, shouting and hitting things, everyone would know exactly what was going through his head. This silence was frightening in the way that it hid his emotions and thoughts behind a facade of vague neutrality. This was the kind of bone deep revulsion that promised that whoever it was directed towards should watch their backs for the rest of eternity.

“Lucy,” The woman in question jumped a bit as Joe suddenly spoke up, “Would you please get a hold of Gwil and Rami? Tell them to meet us here as soon as possible.” The look in Joe’s eyes, no longer a void of darkness but one of pleading, had Lucy nodding silently. She walked out of the room, trying to give them as much privacy as she could, the other people who had been in the room also leaving as well when they realized that was what the woman was doing.

Joe gently moved Ben, directing him to sit down on the couch nearby, and placing himself next to his lover, the side of his body pressed against Ben’s, one hand lacing their fingers together and holding tight. He turned slightly and ran his thumb over Ben’s cheeks, wiping away the leftover tears from the beautiful man’s face. He leaned in and laid a gentle kiss against the Brit’s lips, and his lover returned it with a small sigh of relief. 

The pair sat there in silence, their foreheads leaned against one another, soaking in the peaceful presence that each gave the other. They were like that for a few minutes before the calm atmosphere was interrupted by the door to the room banging open and a worried Gwil and Rami bursting through. Lucy had given them the short version of what had happened as they’d all but raced to the break room, and they were relieved to see the soulmates had seemed to calm down from how the blond woman had described them to be when she left the room.

The men approached the soulmates slowly, pulling up chairs when it looked like they weren’t going to get their heads ripped off.

“So, what are we gonna do?” Rami said quietly as he leaned forward, elbows on his knees and hands clasped in front of him. ‘We’ he had said, and Joe fought back a tear of his own. His friend wasn’t asking about what Joe and Ben were going to do about it. He asked what they ALL were going to do about it, and Joe was so grateful in that moment, because even though he knew in his very soul that it was his job to protect his soulmate, he was glad that he had people who would help them.

Joe had been thinking about how he was going to get justice while he’d been sitting there, soothing his lover. So many scenarios had gone through his head and had been dismissed. He’d thought about blacklisting every journalist and publication that had spread those lies, or getting lawyers involved trying to get the articles removed from circulation and getting them in trouble for defamation of character. Each idea had been summarily discarded as he thought about how they would only bring out more negativity, and he couldn't stand the thought of bringing anymore of that to his lover.

“We keep calm, and carry on.” Joe said with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. The other three men let out a small chuckle at the overused phrase. “We are not going to let those bastards see that they’ve gotten to us.” This was directed to his lover. “We’re going to go on with our lives, and show them that they’re wrong.” 

“What about when the interviews start? There will be people who ask us about it.” Gwil asked, his pose reminding the other three eerily of Brian in the thoughtful way he held himself.

“Tell the truth.” Ben said softly. These were the first words he’d spoken since his breakdown in front of Lucy. “Joe is my soulmate, no matter what those tossers think.” All four men nodded in agreement, and life went on.

The next morning, Ben opened up his Instagram to see he had been tagged in a photo that had been posted by Gwilym. It was a picture of him and Joe on the couch in the break area, with his lover basically in his lap. Both men were laughing as Ben tugged at a lock of the truly atrocious perm that Joe was sporting. The caption beneath the picture read,

‘Two dudes cuddling on a couch, about to make out cause they’re not gay. #myeyes #needbleach #idiotsinlove @benhardy @joe_mazzello’

He let out a laugh at the caption and saw that Joe had already responded to it.

‘Yep, just friends. This is totally normal.’

Ben grinned wide and tapped out his own response to the photo filled with a bit of naughtiness.

‘we totally bang just as friends. totally. just as friends. we’re buddies.’

He knew Joe had seen the comment when laughter rang out from the kitchen where Joe was preparing coffee for both of them to take to set. When Ben finally emerged, dressed and ready to head to set, he smirked as the American was taking a sip of coffee and very innocently said, “Hey buddy.” 

Ben yelped and jumped back when a spray of coffee was coming towards him as Joe’s body immediately tried to laugh while he was drinking. He looked up at Ben, his eyes wide almost like a kicked puppy. “Awh love, it’s ok.” Ben grinned and moved in to wipe the coffee from Joe’s chin. Ben pressed a kiss to his lover’s lips. “Just means I get to help you change into a new shirt.”

Later on that day, Joe got a ping on his phone saying that he’s been tagged in another photo. This time it was Lucy who had posted a picture. Joe was starting to wonder how everyone around them had managed to get pictures of the pair without them ever noticing. At first glance the moment was sweet. Joe and Ben were curled up, pressed into one another as they were power napping on a couch between scenes. The closer Joe looked though, the more of a slight horror show it became.

He and Ben’s mouths were both gaping, drool dripping down Joe’s chin, and on his shirt where Ben’s face was pressed against him. Joe’s head was tilted back on the armrest so that whoever was looking could see up his nose. They were clearly snoring, and Ben’s face was contorted and squished with one eye partially open as he held tight to Joe, even in his sleep.

‘How could anyone deny that these two are perfect for each other?’

Joe dragged a hand down his face, and sighed. At least the shot was true to life.

That night, Joe and Ben were laying in Ben’s bed, still naked from their lovemaking. Joe had officially moved out of the hotel he’d been put up in by the film studio, and was now occupying Ben’s flat with him until the end of shooting a couple of weeks away. They hadn’t really contemplated what would happen after that, but they had time. There were still press tours and other projects that would keep them busy for some time after BoRhap had wrapped.

Ben was lazily running a finger over the mark above Joe’s hip, his head resting on Joe’s stomach.  
Joe’s thoughts had turned inwards as he watched Ben’s finger trace the swirling lines of black. He’d never shown his mark to anyone except for his family, girls he’d slept with and now Ben. His soulmate. The one who wore his own mark with pride in his arm. Sure, Ben hadn’t chosen to put it there, but Joe had never seen him try to hide it, even throughout their whole denial ordeal.

Joe sat up on his elbows when he came to a sudden decision. “I want to show them.” 

“Hmmm?” Ben hummed out in a questioning tone, his head turning so that his chin was against Joe’s upper stomach, green eyes turned up to watch his lover’s face with curiosity.

“My mark. I want to show people my mark.” One hand moved down to stop Ben’s idle touches, only to lace their fingers together. “I want them to see that I mean all of this. That I am not afraid to prove that you are mine.” He sat up more fully, his hand tugging Ben’s so that the blond had no choice but to sit up as well. 

“Are you sure, love? I know you don’t like people seeing it.” Ben remembered how Joe had been hesitant to even show him that first night. He pulled their interlaced hands to his lips and kissed one of Joe’s knuckles. “You don’t have to prove anything to anyone.”

Joe sighed and ran a hand through his mess of a frizz, and then cupped Ben’s cheek in his palm, the younger man leaning into the warm touch. “I want to do it. I want to shout it from the rooftops, but I guess Instagram will have to do, because I’m slightly scared of heights.” Joe spoke the last part with a teasing grin on his lips. 

Ben returned the smile with a smirk of his own. “If you’re gonna show yours off, then I want to show mine off too.” Joe rolled his eyes at the statement. Ben’s was on display all the time whenever he wore short sleeves. He couldn’t deny Ben, not when he looked like an enthusiastic puppy who just wanted to help. The pair sat in bed, brainstorming ideas, until settling on a pose and caption for Joe’s page.

It was actually a duo of photos. One was a shot of Ben standing behind Joe, both men shirtless so that Joe’s mark was on full display above the hem of the low slung pants he had thrown on for the sake of propriety. Ben’s right arm was resting against Joe’s side, forearm facing out so that the marks were lined up next to each other. Ben’s chin was resting on the redhead’s shoulder, his face turned towards his lover’s, showing his profile as he smiled at his soulmate. Ben’s left arm was wrapped around Joe’s shoulder, hand splayed out on Joe’s chest.

Joe was looking straight forward, a big lovey grin across his face, with his right hand buried in Ben’s golden hair while his left hand rested on top of Ben’s hand at his chest. The second picture was a close up of Ben’s arm next to Joe’s hip, showing their marks prominently. It had taken no small amount of ingenuity for the two to capture the photo, and there was a small backlog of failed photos on Joe’s phone as they had tried to get the shot. Joe’s phone had fallen off of the makeshift camera mount more than once, and it had taken a few times before they got their timing down for the phone’s countdown.

‘Just two best friends hanging out. #bestfriendmarks #thisismybuddy @benhardy’

The whole BoRhap crew replied to the photo set, each one more sarcastic than the last.

‘#friendswillbefriends’

‘These two are #bestfriendgoals’

Joe felt heat rise up in his cheeks at Ben’s little reply to the photos. It made his heart skip a beat at the blond’s reference to one of Queen’s most well known songs written by John all about his relationship with Roger.

‘yeah, #OnlyMates #YoureMyBestFriend’

The next couple of weeks passed by in a flurry. Filming had ramped up, trying to make sure they were getting everything that they needed without running over schedule. With the original director’s erratic behavior, they’d fallen a bit behind in some places but now that he was out of the picture and replaced by another one at the last minute, it seemed that the movie was actually in a better place than it had been before. The vision was still the same, but at least there was more consistency in action. 

Joe checked social media every day, making sure that they were accomplishing what they had hoped to. The negative press had died down a bit after the flood of posts that had been made by himself and the others. His agent had called him a couple of times, asking about making a statement. Joe had declined the first time, but the second time he just spoke the truth. He even insisted that the statement be word for word, with no omissions or flowery additions. 

“We don’t owe those bastards anything, especially after the horrible things they said about my soulmate. As far as I’m concerned, every last one of them can rot. They had the gall to paint me as his fucking victim, some pawn in a revenge plot as if I’m not a grown ass man who can make his own decisions.”

When Ben’s agent asked him about his own statement, he merely replied with, “What Joe said, but maybe a bit more polite.”

Joe received a call from his mom on the last day of filming, two days after his and Ben’s agents released their public statements.

“Joseph Francis Mazzello the third, I thought your father and I taught you better than to use such language.” Joe had barely been able to get in a ‘Hello mom’ before she came out with that. After a moment of silence, she continued and made a huge grin cross her oldest son’s face. “Good on you for defending your soulmate. Now, when are you going to bring him around to meet the family?” For that, Joe didn’t really have an answer, and thinking about it made his mood go down.

The four borhap boys were going to head off on a little vacation in a couple of days, going to Scotland and Paris to unwind after filming, but after that it was unclear. Joe would have to return to the states, and Ben would be staying in England for a bit before he had to go film for another movie. The thought of having to part from Ben so soon after finally coming together ripped his heart in half.

Ben and Joe stayed with each other every single moment they could from that day, right up until Joe had to go through security at Heathrow to catch his flight back to the U.S. Joe turned to look at his partner, and saw that tears were welling up in the man’s gorgeous green eyes. He automatically reached up and ran his thumb over Ben’s sculpted cheekbone, catching the tear before it could trail down his cheek. 

“Oh baby, please don’t cry.” He moved closer in, setting down his shoulder bag so that he could wrap his arms around Ben’s waist and nuzzle his face against the side of his neck. Ben arms wrapped around his shoulders, his fingers clutching at Joe’s jacket while he sniffled, trying to hold back the tears. Heartache ricocheted through Joe, and he knew it was a combination of both his and Ben’s as their soulmate bond caused him to feel the intense longing and sadness that they both felt in the moment.

“I miss you already, the flat won’t be the same without you, love.” Ben said softly against Joe’s ear. They were immune to all of the eyes around them, some looking on with interest, and others with sympathy. Even the people didn’t know who they were could all see that this was two soulmates parting.

Joe pulled back from Ben, just enough so that they could rest their foreheads against each other, both men taking deep breaths as they tried to calm down the heightened emotions. “And my apartment will feel empty without you in it Benny. We’ll see each other soon, ok? We’ll figure this out.” Joe used one hand to gently card through Ben’s soft blond locks a couple of times, comforting his other half.

“I love you.” Ben said on a hitched breath as a sob threatened to escape him.

“I love you, too Benny baby. With all my soul.” Joe replied softly, his own voice just a hair away from breaking before he moved his lips against Ben’s in a kiss so filled with longing that it almost hurt. He reluctantly pulled away from Ben a few moments later, and brushed his fingers across Ben’s cheeks again, wiping away the tears that had fallen. “I’ll see you soon.”

“See you soon buddy.” Ben said with a small smile, as his own hand rested against the side of Joe’s neck, taking in one last bit of warmth and from his lover before Joe picked his bag up again and walked to security. Ben didn't leave his spot until he saw Joe disappear from his sight.


	6. Make Me Your Headline

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Days have past since Ben and Joe have parted, and Ben has been finding it difficult to get along without his other half. Being ambushed by a paparazzo was doing nothing to help. What happened after that, though, made it all better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for continuing to read this! Please leave comments below, and yell at me on tumblr. Big, huge thank yous and love to Just_Call_Me_Floss for the continued support and co-authorship, and for putting up with me and my unpredictable writing!
> 
> Warning: This chapter contains smut. Proceed with caution, and a change of underwear.

The first few days of their separation were the hardest. Ben hardly left his flat, only venturing out to buy necessities and to walk Frankie. The emptiness left in the place was stifling, but remnants of Joe were all around him. His scent in the sheets, the shirt he accidentally left behind, and the fifteen different types of tea that now took up space in Ben’s pantry. Sure, they called and texted every day, but those were a pale comparison to having Joe in his arms. At least the paparazzi had given it a rest. Well, so far as he knew. They weren’t lurking around outside of his flat anymore, at least.

Ben’s friend Andy had enough of his recluse routine after day 5 of seeing hide not hair of the blond man. He nearly had to drag the guy out after throwing clothing from Ben’s closet at him along with hair product and his toothbrush. 

“We’re going out and having a pint. No more moping about because you miss your soulmate. You’re going to see him in a few weeks for BoRhap press stuff anyways. Stop being a baby about it.”

Ben begrudgingly did as Andy told him, and followed him down to the pub that Ben had used to frequent before Kat had left him. He’d only been a couple of times since then, both times with Joe in tow to show the little place off. Andy had done a pretty good job of lifting his spirits. He’d even taken a couple of selfies of the two of them at the bar and sent them to Joe. Joe had also been trying to get Ben to leave his place and do stuff, but without the advantage of being able to physically drag the man out of his place it had been a moot effort. Joe had happily responded with a bunch of happy faces and kissing emojis. 

The bartenders greeted him like an old friend when he and Andy took seats at the bar. It brought a smile to Ben’s face knowing that some things never changed. He wasn’t ‘Ben Hardy, actor and tabloid headline.’ He was just Ben Jones, the regular who tipped well, and always had a smile for the employees. That feeling of comfort and relaxation was shattered when he and Andy stepped out of the pub a couple of hours and a few pints later, only to be greeted by a bloke with a camera waiting outside for them. This wasn’t just some fan who wanted a selfie or an autograph. Ben had grown complacent the last few days. His recluse status had driven away paparazzi, as he’d barely come and gone from the flat. 

“How’s your ‘soulmate’ doing Ben? I see he’s not here with you. Any reason for that?”

It wasn’t the words that made Ben’s hackles rise. Out of almost anyone, the question would have been innocent, but the way the paparazzo had said it with condescension lacing each word, and the fact that one side of his lips was turned up in a smirk made it clear this guy was having a go.

“So I see they’re getting a jump start on the marketing of this film,” the camera still shoved in his face, Ben tried to speed up his steps, but the guy just kept following, just kept invading his privacy. 

“What you talking about, mate?” Ben glared at the pap, knowing he shouldn’t engage with this man, but he wasn’t leaving him alone.

“You and Joe? It’s a PR stunt, ain’t it? Made by the bosses to make the film look better,” Ben could hear the man’s pleased tone as the two hurried down the London streets.

“Oh shove off man, will you? Fuck off and leave us alone” Ben was so close to turning to this man and giving him a right wallop, and the swear word slipped out.

“Oh, have I got you annoyed?” The guy laughed, pushing the camera closer and making Ben push it away, “got on a nerve, have I?”

Ben felt a literal growl begin to bubble up out of his throat as white hot rage started to course through his veins. He was not one who was quick to anger most of the time. He was more prone to becoming distressed and emotional over these kinds of things. However, it had been one thing to see anonymous people writing horrible things on the internet. It was an entirely different feeling when someone was saying those things directly to him. The absolute nerve that this random bloke had to question him and his soulmate as if they weren’t human beings made Ben’s blood boil. 

Joe’s day had been going about the same as all the previous days had. He worked on a new screenplay, read a few scripts, and texted Ben. He was glad to see that Ben had been dragged out of his flat by his friend, as Joe really was starting to worry that his soulmate was turning into a hermit in his absence. Joe had very similar feelings in that regard, as he had also been staying in his apartment a good ninety percent of the time he’d been home. Ben had just been loafing around, counting the days until he had to start filming his next project. Joe, at least, had been keeping busy with some sort of work.

Joe had just sat down at his kitchen table for lunch, when suddenly he started to feel agitated. He looked down at his sandwich, and the more he stared, the angrier he became as if that sandwich was the source of all of his frustrations. As the rage grew, a stark moment of clarity hit him. This was not him. He didn’t get irrationally angry at lunch food. He hadn't even been thinking about anything that would upset him like this.

“Ah shit.” This was a BEN emotion, coming through their soulmate bond. What the hell was going on that made his other half so enraged that Joe would be able to feel it? He scrambled out of his chair, nearly knocking it over in the process, and ran to his office where he left his phone.

He fumbled as he unlocked his phone, cursing under his breath as he hit the button to dial Ben, and waited as the phone rang.

“Hey, Love.” Ben’s voice came through the phone, and over the connection Joe could hear the venom in his soulmate’s words. He knew that ire was not directed at him, so Ben must have still been around whatever had caused the outburst of emotion in the first place.

“What’s wrong Ben? I got angry at a ham sandwich! I know there’s something going on with you.” Joe was trying to take deep breaths in a bid to calm himself down, and hoping that his influence was making it back across to his lover.

“Nothing I can't handle, love. Just some wannabe journo who thinks he can get the scoop on a story that doesn’t exist.” The way the blond said those words, and the fact that Ben was still absolutely irate made Joe think the paparazzi guy was still in the vicinity. Joe started to feel the anger ebb away slowly. 

“What was he saying?” Joe asked in a tone that was much calmer than before. He couldn’t hold his other half like he wanted to, but the reassurance that Joe was on the other end of the line must have had enough of an effect on Ben to put out the worst of the fire.

“Same shite’s been in the rags. It’s a PR stunt, I don’t actually love you, I’m using you for revenge.”

Joe’s blood ran cold. That icy feeling he had after he’d found Ben sobbing into Lucy when the horrible slander had first come out came back in force. Now they weren’t just writing the stuff on the internet or talking about it in stupid gossip shows. They were confronting HIS Ben. His soulmate, and the thought made Joe angrier than he had ever been. “Is the guy still there?” Joe’s voice was flat, and frosty. 

“Yeah, bloke seems to think he’s gonna get something if he follows me home.”

“Put me on speaker.” Joe said, his voice still monotone and calm. Ben tried to say he didn’t need to do that, but Joe stopped him with a slightly more forceful, “Put. Me. On. Speaker.”

Joe heard some shuffling sounds, and the farther away voice of Ben. “Oi, you wanted a statement? My soulmate’s got one for you.” A moment later, the noises became louder as the phone was set to speakerphone mode.

“If the next words out of your mouth aren’t ‘Congratulations, I’m so happy for you.’ Then that camera of yours is going to find a new home lodged in your lower intestine. Do I make myself clear?” Even through the digital connection of the phone, the tone of Joe’s voice would have made the Arctic feel like a tropical paradise.

Ben’s fiery rage had transitioned into frigid calmness. No doubt the influence of Joe coming through their bond. He had only experienced the sharing of emotions when he and Joe had parted at the airport, and their emotions had been so similar that it was hard to tell whose was whose at the time. He’d made Joe feel him in distress twice now and he understood how jarring it had to have been. Ben looked up from the phone to the journo, whose face had gone a couple of shades paler than before. A grin stretched across the blond’s lips, all teeth and vicious glee at the prospect of getting to shove a camera up the guy’s arse. Ben really was a gifted actor.

The bloke just gave a nod and quickly turned and headed off in the other direction, probably to change pants as the ones he was wearing were probably ruined now. He was probably also off to find how much money he could get for the video footage he had of an enraged Ben Hardy and the threatening message that Joe had given him over the phone. Ben couldn’t be arsed to care at the moment. The pap was gone, and that was what mattered at the moment. He and Joe would deal with the fall out later.

Ben took Joe off of speaker, and held the device up to his ear again. He continued walking back towards his flat, Andy having gone off the other way just as they’d left the pub before the pap had ambushed him. “He’s run off, love. I must admit that I’m a little turned on. I didn’t know my sweet, funny Joseph had it in him to be so.. commanding.” Ben said quietly into the phone. He was still on a public street, after all.

Ben could practically feel the blush in Joe’s cheeks over the connection. Now that they had both had a moment to calm down, the emotional connection had settled so that they were both in themselves again. Now that Ben had Joe on the line, he didn’t want to let the man go just yet. Even though they had been texting throughout the day, it didn’t compare to the sound of Joe’s voice. They kept chatting for the rest of Ben’s walk home, both men talking about possible outcomes for what had transpired that night. Once the blond had managed to get into his flat he pulled the phone from his ear and hit the button to turn on the video call function.

A giant grin split his face when the rumpled appearance of his soulmate came up on screen. Ben knew it was still mid afternoon for the redhead, but it seemed that Joe was still in his pyjamas. He wasn’t going to judge. He’d been in the same state a few hours ago before Andy had made him put on real clothes and venture out to the pub. Ben shrugged out of his jacket, and toed off his shoes, the video shaky as he switched it between hands and moved around. When he got to the kitchen, he propped the phone up against the coffee machine while he moved around, getting himself some food and turning on the kettle for a cup of tea.

They kept idly chatting about their days, Ben updating Joe on the state of Frankie and Joe telling Ben about how his mother had yet again pestered him about when she was going to get to meet her son’s soulmate. Once Ben had finished his tea and a sandwich of his own, he made his way into his bedroom after putting in his wireless earbuds so he could hear Joe better as he laid down in the bed that felt a little less cold and empty as he spoke to his other half.

“You really got excited cause of the way I spoke to that jerk?” Joe laughed, taking a drink of his coffee as he watched his soulmate blush on the other side of the globe, “oh my god you did!” 

“Shut up,” Ben laughed along, rubbing against the back of his neck as his cheeks heated up, “you sounded hot, that’s all” 

“I sounded hot?” Joe was a bit in disbelief but was loving it, “what part? Me telling him where I’d put the camera? You into that kinda stuff?” 

“No! No, fuck off, no,” Ben blushed even more and rolled his eyes, “it was.... the way you spoke. So sure of yourself, so demanding...”

Joe took a moment to mull over that confession, his eyes never straying from the image of Ben’s flushed cheeks and the shy look in his eyes. He saw that Ben was fidgeting a bit, his video shaking as his body moved. One side of Joe’s lips curled up as he realized that the motion he saw was his blond lover ‘adjusting’ himself. Joe brought his coffee cup up to his lips for another sip as he leaned back in his office chair.

“Oh? So my Benny boy likes it when I take control then?” The redhead’s voice deepened ever so slightly as he spoke, his tone still casual but laced with a little something that made Ben’s spine shiver happily. Joe’s eyes stared straight into the camera as he took another sip of his coffee. “It doesn’t really surprise me. You really do like me talking to you while my cock’s inside of your ass.”

Blood rushed down to his groin, stirring his arousal and stretching the denim tight. Ben shifted in his seat, licking his lips as a soft blush coloured his cheeks. He really bloody loved it when his other half whispered those filthy things to him while they shagged - loved it when Joe told him how much he wanted him, how good Ben felt around his cock, and how they were made together. He wanted to hear more from the redhead, but sometimes it got a little hard to do and ask for in the blissed out moments leading up to orgasm, and then afterwards, well, Ben's brain turned to mush

Joe saw the flush increase on his lover and knew that he had hit the nail on the head, so to speak. 

“I wish you’d said more.” Ben said softly, and Joe’s eyes seemed to bore into him through the digital screen. 

“Oh Benny... baby, you wanted me to do so much more than just talk,” he let those words sit for a moment as his lips stretched up in a sure smirk, “I want you to tell me”. Joe’s voice was serious, but as he sipped from his cooling coffee and quirked an eyebrow, it came off as relaxed and casual. Totally opposite to how Ben was reacting. Letting out a long breath, Ben’s eyes glanced away for a moment. He should tell Joe, see if he liked the idea. If he didn’t, then at least they both know. 

“I... I’d like you to take more control?” The words wrapped upwards at the end, showing the nerves and uncertainty in the statement and presenting it as a question. “You don’t have to, but I’d like for you to maybe tell me what to do”

Joe saw how nervous the blond was to tell him what he wanted. It was both cute, and just a little bit sad. His soulmate should never feel like he couldn’t ask or tell him anything. “All you had to do was ask.” His lip turned up at the corner again, and he moved in his office chair, leaning back like this was just another one of their talks.

Ben shifted around on the bed again, and felt a shiver run down his spine at Joe’s next words. “Must’ve been hard to walk home with your cock aching.” It was true that the walk home had been awkward as he tried to hide that he was pitching a tent after the journo had fucked off. He’d managed to get back to a normal state as he made his tea and sandwich, but once Joe started talking about it again, the feelings from earlier had come back. The fact that Joe was being so casual about it, teasing the blond about the situation was adding to it.

“Y-yeah, it was.” Ben whispered, trying to discreetly press his free hand against the growing erection in his jeans. It had actually been pretty hot. It was almost like a secret that would be humiliating if found out. 

Joe found himself slipping into a role, as if he was on set with a camera rolling. It was a part that was just for his Benny boy, and that in itself gave him pleasure. “You liked it.” It wasn’t a question. Joe could tell by the way the brit’s cheeks flushed and his body squirmed through the screen that he was getting aroused again. “You liked knowing that you were turned on, and anyone could’ve seen.” A tingle ran down the american’s spine. He managed to keep his outside calm, even though on the inside he was aching for more of his lover. “Show me.” His voice dropped even lower, husky at the edges.

There was something about the way that Joe said those two little words that did something for Ben. His cock twitched under his jeans and he bit down on his lower lip to quiet a groan. He nodded in response, and pressed the button to turn the view of the camera around. He angled it down so that the apparent bulge in his crotch was plainly visible to the redhead.

“Oh Ben. What am I gonna do with you?” Joe kept speaking in that deep, husky voice. Heat was starting to pool low in his stomach as well, just a small ember. He couldn’t see the blond’s face, but he could still hear small pants of breath through the phone. “I want to see more. Don’t tease me baby. Show me what I do to you.”

Ben hissed in a breath, and his hand appeared on screen. It was shaking slightly, but he managed to undo the button and zipper of the trousers quickly. The younger man pushed down the edges of his jeans and pants so that his already hardened, leaking cock was laying against his stomach.

“So hot, my love. You’re already leaking for me.” Joe said as his own hand pressed against the crotch of his pajama pants, his legs opening up wider where he sat. “Touch yourself, Benny. I know you want to.”

Joe heard a long, shaky breath over the phone as Ben’s hand slowly moved back into the frame. His lover’s fingers brushed along the length of his cock, causing the blond to moan quietly at the contact. The veins in Ben’s forearm stood out as his fist wrapped around the base of his erection, squeezing gently and making a bit more slick precum dribble from him. Joe grit his teeth, trying to bite back the moan that wanted to escape his lips. He watched as Ben’s hand began to move up and down his own cock, gathering some of the precum from the head and using it to lubricate himself.

“That’s it Benny. You’re so good for me.” Joe heard a small whine from his lover, and it caused a small smirk to appear on his lips. This really was doing something for the blond. Joe could only imagine how much more fun this would be when he could physically be there with Ben. “You’re so beautiful baby, you always feel so good around my cock.” The redhead noticed that Ben’s pace on himself had picked up a bit, and his breathing had quickened. He tsked softly, “Uh-uh.. Slow down Benny, be a good boy for me.” 

Ben whimpered softly, but did as Joe told him, slowing his strokes back down to an even pace that bordered on torturous. “Joe..love, please.” Ben whispered out. It had only been a few days since they had last been together sexually, but the way his body was trying to hurtle itself towards orgasm felt like it had been years.

“Please what, sweetheart?” Joe’s voice had somehow managed to stay calm as he watched his boyfriend’s hand play with himself. He knew exactly how those fingers would feel on him, and his own hand slipped beneath the waistband of his bottoms, sliding down to cup his heavy sac with a bit back groan. Pleasure arced up and down his spine at the little sounds the brit made, watching his hips writhe against the bed with need.

“Unh.. I-I need.. More..” Ben panted out, his hips arching up, and a little more of that slick precum drooling out over his stomach.

Joe bit down on his lower lip, but the small groan still escaped him as he gently squeezed his balls. “You want more?” The american knew that Ben was watching his face on the screen held in front of him. He let one side of his lips quirk up, and tilted his head to the side like he was considering his lover’s words. “You can have more, but I want to see all of it.” There was a definite glint in his eyes as he kept speaking. “I want you to put on a show for me baby. Prop your phone up, and get out of those clothes. Now.”

There was a whimpering sound as Ben’s hand moved away from his cock and the video went shaky as the blond quickly moved to comply with Joe’s words. There was a small amount of mumbled curses as Ben propped his phone up against the dresser that was across from the bed, and turned the front facing camera on again. He bit down on his lower lip, a bright pink flush along his cheeks and down his neck. He stepped away from the camera so that most of his body was visible. His jeans and underwear were still unbuttoned and pushed down, his cock on display though most of his body was still covered. 

Ben tugged his shirt up and over his head before tossing it aside, before shoving his trousers and pants down and kicking them aside. He bit on his lower lip and pressed a hand against his chest before sliding it down over his torso. That blush extended down his neck and onto his chest, and Joe thought that there was nothing more gorgeous in the entire world than his soulmate at that moment. 

“Get the lube, get on your knees on the bed.” Joe’s voice was more forceful and more breathy when he told his Benny what to do. The younger man complied, climbing up onto the bed after pushing the twisted duvet and sheets off to the side. He sat back on his heels, the bottle of lube still held in his hand, his chest rising and falling in a quick but steady rhythm. 

“Ok baby, now I want you to be a good boy and finger yourself for me.” Joe watched as Ben’s breath hitched, and how his lover bit down on his lip again.

Ben felt a shiver run along his spine as he lifted himself up and spread his legs open wider. The position reminded him of a night where Joe had fucked him in this very spot, facing the vanity so that Ben could watch the way his body looked while his soulmate pounded into him. His hands were shaking a bit as he opened up the top of the bottle and poured some of the slick liquid onto his fingers. He looked over at the phone, and though the screen was small, he could almost feel the intensity in Joe’s gaze as he watched him. 

He let out a small sigh as he reached his arm back, his torso tilting forward slightly. His slick fingers teased between his cheeks and he shivered at the cold sensation of the lube against his skin. A small moan escaped his lips when he pressed the tip of a single digit against the tight ring of muscles, and made small circling motions there. Ben pushed his fingertip harder and felt it slip past the ring of muscle, causing him to let out another quiet groan. He moved faster than he probably should have, but it felt so good. He hadn’t even touched himself in the last few days. Any time he had tried, it had just made him miss Joe more.

Joe’s own hand pushed down the waistband of his pajama pants, and he hissed in a breath when he wrapped his hand around the base of his cock. His hand slid along his own length, squeezing gently as some of his own precum beaded at the head of his cock. He watched as Ben’s hips began to roll slowly, his lover’s green eyes closing and pink lips parted as he panted. He could tell when his Benny slid a second finger into himself, because there was a small keening sound that escaped the blond’s throat, and his rolling hips moved more quickly, and his fingers tightened against his thick thigh. 

“Open your eyes, Benny baby, I want to see them. I want to know you’re looking at me.” Ben’s eyes slowly opened up, and Joe could tell his soulmate’s hazy gaze was focused on the phone screen. “God, sweetheart. You’re so fucking beautiful.”

Ben preened at the praise, or he would’ve if his brain wasn’t a pile of lust induced mush. He pressed a third finger into himself and curled them around until his body arched and tensed when he found that spot inside of him that sent electricity straight to his dick. He whimpered out loudly, his tongue flicking across his lips as his fingertips brushed along that spot over and over again. 

“Good boy. You’re so good for me. Touch your cock, baby. I want to see you come for me.” Joe’s voice was raspy, and Ben could tell that his lover was approaching his own release nearly as quickly as he was. Ben choked out a moan when his hand that had been squeezing his thigh wrapped around his cock. He began to stroke himself with every push and pull of his fingers into his body. 

Joe’s breath hitched with need and pleasure as he watched the blond race towards orgasm, his own hand on himself trying to match the pace that Ben was using. He imagined that it was his soulmate’s tight, warm ass around his cock instead of his own hand, and that thought sent a wave of pleasure through him that had him teetering on the edge. He knew that his other half was on the edge too, because he could feel it along the bond they shared.

“Come for me Benny baby, I know you’re close. I want to see it all over you. Let me see what I do to you.” Joe bit back another groan, while Ben’s pants and moans filled his ears. The brit’s cheeks and neck were flushed a deep pink, sweat glistening against his brow and chest as his core tensed up.

“F-fuck.. Joe.. love..” Ben’s voice was keening as his hips bucked, before his whole body went still. He cried out to Joe as orgasm overtook him, and stars burst behind his eyes. He felt his own warm cum splash against his stomach, chest and hand. The american followed only a few strokes after that, his own hips arching up and groaning out Ben’s name as he came all over his own fist and the t-shirt he had been wearing. They both panted quietly, their eyes locked on their respective screens while the waves of pleasure slowly receded.

Ben gasped when he pulled his fingers out of himself, and he fought to stay upright as his body felt all the tension leave it. He swayed on his knees, and swallowed thickly as eyes shut. A massive grin split his face, and a small breathless laugh left his lips. “Fuck, I’ve missed you love.”

Joe could only laugh, and reply with, “Me too baby, me too.”


	7. Save My Tears

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Being away from their soulmate has driven each man crazy. It feels like they're being torn apart from the inside out, and one night Joe has a deep revelation about himself and his past.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! Sorry about the delay in getting this uploaded, but life has been weird, and sometimes it's hard for me to sit down and write, and be happy with what I've put down. Thank you to Just_Call_Me_Floss for all of the support and co-authorship and your never ending pool of patience when it comes to me and my fickle writing moods!

Joe let out a bone deep sigh as he stared out at the fluffy clouds and too blue sky from his seat on the airplane. He should have been happy. He was flying business class in one of the world’s best airlines headed to Japan to do a whirlwind press tour. This should have been exciting, but all he could muster was a melancholy mood. He wanted to do this. He wanted to see Japan, and do interviews, and have a good time.

He wanted it with Ben.

The problem was that Ben was on the other side of the world filming Six Underground, an action film worthy of his incredible talents. Joe had been tempted on several occasions to just pick up and fly off to Italy to his soulmate. He’d go so far as to look up flights when reality would crash back down around him. Ben was working, and Joe had obligations to his family and his own projects that he had to prepare for. Those things didn’t seem to matter though when he woke up in the middle of the night with his hand reaching out to the other side of the bed only to find it cold and empty. 

Even now, when he turned his head and saw the dark haired head of his friend Rami, instead of the golden blond locks of his soulmate, he felt an ache deep inside of himself. It had been a few months since he had been able to hold his other half in his arms, and he felt the strain of it every day. He knew, logically, that soulmates survived being apart for long periods of time with no problems. It wasn’t like they would die without each other.

But his heart made him feel like he could. He and Ben had spent so much time denying their bond, and then had such a short amount of time to be together that it felt like it hadn’t settled in them completely. Joe leaned back in his seat, reclining it as far as it could go. He pushed the button to darken the window, and pulled the slightly-more-luxurious-than-economy blanket up to his chin. When he closed his eyes, visions of his sweet, loving Ben kept flitting through his mind until he fell into a fitful sleep.

Joe was jolted out of sleep by Rami shaking him when the announcement that they would be landing soon had been made. He rubbed at his eyes, trying to get the sleep out of them while raising his chair upright, and blinked blearily around. He was confused for a half a second when it wasn’t Ben sitting next to him. He hadn’t woken up to anything but his alarm for so long that he assumed the one waking him would be Ben. Joe let out another one of those deep sighs that had become second nature to him, and crumpled up the blanket before buckling himself into his seat in a slight daze.

Joe knew he must have looked in a right state when they disembarked. Thankfully though, so did everyone else he had been travelling with. Nobody wanted to make a thirteen plus hour flight in anything that might be remotely formal or camera ready. Everyone was in comfy clothing that looked more like they were just hanging out at home or in their backyard with friends. Joe himself was in an old pair of jeans, a loose fitting t-shirt that he had stolen from Ben, ratty sneakers and a ball cap to hide his messy hair. He felt exceedingly gross from being trapped in the plane with recycled air, and was in no mood to deal with any paparazzi that might be waiting to see them. There was no escaping them, even in Japan. He pulled his sunglasses from his messenger bag and threw them on as they left the airport, hoping they would hide him well enough.

Ben wasn’t doing too much better than Joe was. It wasn’t so bad while he was on set. He had his cast mates and the crew to keep him distracted most of the time. His devotion to acting kept him on track whenever the director yelled ‘Action!’ 

It was the time between that was eating at him. He’d turn to tell something to his lover at the craft table, fully expecting to hear Joe laugh at what he had said, or give one of those eye rolls. His heart fell every single time he realized that wasn’t going to happen. 

The worst of it was when he was laying in his hotel room bed at night. The bed was big and luxurious, with a nice thick duvet, and soft sheets that the blond barely noticed. It didn’t have his soulmate in it. When he was in his own bed back in London, he at least had the memories of Joe laying next to him and the lingering scent of him that seemed to permeate the pillows. Right now, Joe was in Japan half a world away yet again. At the beginning of their separation they had been able to talk regularly, but now with Ben’s erratic shooting schedule and Joe being in a completely different part of the world with his own crazy schedule getting time to talk was bordering on impossible.

His heart, and soul, ached relentlessly like it was being pulled to the other side of the world at all times. What kept him going was the fact that he would be back with Joe again within the next month. Filming for Six Underground would end, and he’d be back home in England to continue doing press for BoRhap and he would spend every available second they had to the best advantage. The two of them would be just as insufferable as they had been on the set of BoRhap, and they would make it a goal to make Gwilym rolls his eyes at least twice a day with how fucking adorable they were together.

That thought brought a smile back to Ben’s face, and helped him get back into the mindframe he needed to get back on set and make it through the day’s filming.

Three days into the press tour in Japan, Joe received what could only be classified as a gift from above when he, Gwilym and Rami were presented with a life sized cardboard cutout of his soulmate. Joe immediately took possession of it and treated it as his precious. Anywhere the three of them went, Cardy B as it was starting to be referred to, went along as well. The ginger’s attachment to the fake Ben was getting slightly worrisome to his friends, not that either of them were going to say a single word to Joe about it. They’d seen how miserable he had been after the separation between the two of them the last couple of months. If it made him happy to cart along the giant piece of cardboard, Gwil and Rami would put up with it. They would even participate in the little videos that Joe insisted on making, pretending that the prop was the real Ben.

Ben had even thought that the pictures and videos were cute, including the one where Joe woke up in bed with the cardboard cutout, pretending that he had cheated on Ben with the thing.

It was the picture that Gwil had sent to him in the group chat that had made Ben do a double take, and then laugh hysterically. It was Joe laying in bed, fast asleep. Gwil had no doubt invaded the ginger’s room in an attempt to wake him up so as not to be late for the day’s activities. Joe sometimes had a habit of forgetting to set his alarm, or sleep through it, when he was really exhausted. His soulmate had Cardy B tucked under the covers next to him, with one arm splayed over the cutout. 

It took a moment for Ben to react to the photo. The first thought he had was, ‘Well, that’s a bit creepy,’ quickly followed by ‘Awwwwh he misses me that much.’ Sure, it was just a little crazy that his boyfriend slept with a life size depiction of him. The blond wasn’t exactly innocent himself. He had brought a framed picture of Joe with him while he filmed and had more than once fallen asleep while holding it. 

The pair of them were sickeningly sweet even when they were thousands of miles apart. It still made his heart ache to know that his soulmate had clung to a substitute of him in his absence.

One night while Joe was in his hotel room bed, staring across the room at the cardboard cutout of Ben, he had an epiphany. It should have come out of the blue, but the more he thought about it, the more he realized that he’d had the thought in the back of his mind from the moment he had made his wordless admission to his soulmate.

An immense sense of guilt racked through his body. This feeling hurt him almost as much as the day he and Ben had finally gotten together, when he made the blond feel so anxious and filled with nerves and pain that it was a physical ache.

This longing, and feeling of emptiness of being away from his soulmate, his other half, felt like it was ripping him in two. Of course as time went on, the pain had faded into the background, but it was always there. He thought about someone that had been out of his mind for so long that he had nearly forgotten about her. 

This was what Randi would have felt if she’d stayed with him. This is what she had to have felt for the week that she stayed with him when he came back after those few months he had been away. Tears pricked at the corners of his eyes as the thought of what she must have felt ran through him. He’d pushed her out of his life, not once considering the pain that it must have put her through to stay away from her own soulmate for his sake. He’d been so wrapped up in his own selfish anger.

‘Ah fuck…’ The thought crossed through his mind as he buried his face in his pillow when the tears that had been threatening to fall finally spilled over.

“Ah fuck!” Ben exclaimed when his hand slipped from the bar he was supposed to be using to hoist himself up during this dramatic climb. His hand scrambled back up to grasp hold of it again as a wave of some aching feeling rolled through his body. His breath came in hitched sobs as he clung to the structure, and he had to fight back the urge to start crying. It was a futile effort, and hot, salty tears ran tracks down his cheeks and neck. The emotion that was roiling deep in his gut weighed him down like someone had tied stones to his feet, pulling him towards earth. 

It was hard to place the feeling, and different thoughts of what it could be flit through the blond’s mind while he tried to steady himself. Regret? Not quite right. Contrite? No, that wasn’t it either. Remorse? Yes. That was what this was. Remorse and guilt. So much guilt that it was a physical pain. Ben hadn’t even noticed that the stuntman who was supervising this scene was calling out to him, trying to see if he was alright. He was so wrapped up in his own bubble of pain that everything else faded out besides that feeling and the places where he held onto the building.

He tried to take deep breaths to calm himself down, but it wasn’t working. That was how the recovery team found him, clinging to the set piece with tears running down his face. He kept babbling over and over again, “I’m so sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” The stunt team managed to calm him just enough to get him to let go so that they could rappel him down to the ground. The brit had managed to stop his babbling, even though the tears had barely slowed down. 

It was unnerving to the crew to see him in this state. The medical team did a quick check to see if he was injured, thinking that maybe he’d hurt himself when he slipped but could find nothing physically wrong with him. The rest of the team chalked it up to nerves about the height.

“l-I’ll be fine..” Ben said with a slight stutter, his hands down at his sides as he tried to hide the fact that they were shaking. “I just.. I need a minute..” His voice was softer than anyone had heard him use since they’d been on set. One of the PA’s brought him a bottle of water, telling him that he needed to stay hydrated as she walked him back to his trailer. He thanked her quietly before shutting himself in the blessed solitude of the small space.

His shaking hands reached for his phone, and automatically hit the button to dial what he knew was the cause of the sudden onslaught of emotion. It took a couple of tries before his trembling fingers were able to get the call to go through.

He sniffed a few times as the phone rang, trying to keep the tears at bay now that he’d managed to stop crying. 

“Benny?” Joe’s voice was groggy and raspy, and Ben wondered idly if his soulmate had fallen asleep, or if he was wrecked from crying as well. This feeling had come out of nowhere and the blond was worried about what could have possibly made his soulmate feel so badly.

“Joey, love…” Ben’s own voice was shaky, deeper and huskier than normal as his throat clogged up with the effort to not sob directly into the phone. “Something happened..” He tried to make it a question, but the twinge in his heart was still there, making his ability to form rational thoughts much harder. 

“Ben...” the voice on the other side of the phone sounded suddenly much more there and present. Joe hated those words the moment they’d come out of his Ben’s mouth. He hated that Ben had to go off and do an action film. With guns! Guns! Hating that they had to be far away from each other and they couldn’t be together right now. “Are you ok?”

Ben nodded on the other side of the phone, biting his bottom lip hard until it went white before he realised Joe couldn’t see him. “I’m fine,” he rushed out on a breath before he gulped in some air, “I’m fine. Are you? I... I felt something and I was up this scaffold thing and then I wasn’t and then I was again and I was crying and it took a bunch of people way too long to get me down and all I could think about was you and how sad you were and how I wish I could be there with you and I wish I-“ the blond let out another broken cry, doubling over on the bed he was sat on, eyes screwed closed tight.

“Oh god Ben breathe, I’m ok, I’m fine,” Joe’s heart was breaking all over again and he was trying so hard not to let it seep over the connection, but he could feel the phantom tears running down Ben’s cheeks, “I swear baby, I’m okay, I really am” he threw his head back and blinked back the tears.

“Love, you are not fine.” Ben managed to get out in a whisper once he had taken a few gasping breaths of air. His hand clutched at the material of his shirt just over his heart, where the ache had started to subside to a dull throb. He pulled in another shaky breath, “What happened Joe? Please, I need to know..” He let out the breath, just as shaky as the one taken in. “Why are you guilty?”

Just the thought of that feeling made Ben’s breath hitch in his throat again, and he fought hard to stay present. He had always been more sensitive than he let on, always feeling everything so deeply. Now that he had his true, bonded soulmate it seemed that capacity for feeling was hitting him like a brick. He’d heard people talk about the emotion sharing before, but not all soulmates could share their emotions so clearly as he and Joe seemed to.

“Benny,” Joe started and stopped, his own voice wavering a little as he spoke. He didn’t know how to bring up what he had been thinking about, but he also couldn’t brush it off as nothing. “Baby.. do you remember that night at the pub? And what we talked about while you walked me back to my hotel?” He said the words carefully, trying his best to keep his tone even and calm. He had to put on a brave front for his british lover, even if the emotions that had been swirling through him told another story. 

“Yeah, I remember love.” Ben spoke softly before taking a small sip of water from the bottle that had been handed to him earlier, the cool drink soothing his aching throat. “I’d not told anyone about what happened until then.” It was another one of those moments that Ben had looked back on after he and Joe had gotten together. The fact that he had told Joe something so deeply personal and painful had meant something, even then. 

“I was thinking about…” Joe paused as he tried to figure out how to put what he had felt into words. There was this indescribable feeling of guilt inside of him. How could he have ever thought to hurt someone this way? “About how this ache from being away from you.. This was how she felt. That week that she laid in bed next to me, away from the other half of her soul? On the nights she stayed away from him in our apartment to stay up late on the phone with me.” Joe felt that guilt rising up inside of him again, tears coming back in his eyes even as he tried to will them away. “I was so angry at her, Ben. I was so hurt, but I never once thought about what it did to her.” 

Joe lost the battle against his own emotions and tears fell down his face, and onto his blanket covered lap, his head hung in what could only be described as shame.

Both men were silent for a long moment, each one drowning in their shared emotions. 

It felt like hours, but was really only a few minutes later when they had each allowed those thoughts to move around inside of them and settle in. By that time they both managed to calm their racing hearts enough that the soul bond had come to a better balance. It wasn’t happy, but at least it wasn’t a riptide of emotion pulling them into each other anymore.

“Fucking hell, it’s what I’d have done to Kat too.” Ben finally managed to choke out. Those minutes of silent contemplation had him digging into his own memory. “I begged her to stay with me, away from the woman she bonded with.” He took another, deeper, drink of the water from the bottle still clutched in his hand. His eyes burned from the tears that had been spilling from them, but he felt like he didn’t have anymore to give now. 

“I’m sorry, Benny baby.” Joe said after a few more minutes of contemplative silence. “I’m so fucking sorry I put you through that.” The ginger sniffed while wiping his face clean of tears. He knew the blond understood what he meant in those words. The separation and the sharing of the intense negative emotion was something he had never wanted to put his other half through. It didn’t matter that it was inevitable that they were going to face their feelings, and they couldn’t be with each other twenty-four seven as much as they wished they could. It still tore Joe up inside that he was hurting the one person on the planet that he would give his life for.

A knock on the trailer door broke the little bubble that Ben had been in. For a moment there, it almost felt like Joe was right there with him, their emotions so intertwined with one another they couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began.

“Ben, if you’re up for it, we wanna give the scene another go.” The voice of one of the stunt crew came through the door of the trailer.

“One sec, mate.” The brit called out to the guy. “I have to go love, You alright?” Ben knew the answer was no, but he didn’t really have a choice at the moment.

“I’ll be fine, baby. Go be the action star I know you are.” Joe said with a little bit more life in his voice than he’d had earlier. He’d finally stopped the tears and had come to a steady state of being. Not fully better, but he had been comforted by sharing with his soulmate. Just knowing that Ben was there for him, and knew that he understood all of his anguish made the feeling bearable. 

“Love you, Joey. Don’t have too much fun without me, yeah?” Ben said as the smallest of smiles crept up onto his lips. He stood and moved over to the trailer door, waiting until Joe had responded to step back out and face the crew.

“Love you too, Benny. Don’t get shot.” Joe said with a small smile on his own lips. His tone belied his very real concern that Ben would have a firearm mishap. He pushed the button to end the call, and laid back down in his bed, moving to the other side so that he didn’t lay his head on the pillow that was still stained with his tears.


	8. Reside In My Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After months of separation, Ben and Joe finally get to be with each other again. There's no rest for the wicked, and they're on a whirlwind of talking to press, interviews and of course the big premiere.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my god, I'm back! Sorry for the long wait but writing has been hard, and life as been busy. This chapter is just a bunch of fluff with the tiniest little bitty bit of angst because I can't help myself.

Joe’s foot tapped anxiously at the floor of the plane beneath him. He’d been a bundle of nerves for the entire flight, and subconsciously had been urging the plane to go faster, faster.

This was it. After several months of separation, he was finally going to be with his other half again. Butterflies roiled through his stomach as the announcement from the captain came on that they were approaching Heathrow and that they’d be on the ground soon. His hands clutched at the armrests of his seat as the plane bumped a couple of times on landing, and breathed a sigh of relief. He was now on the ground, and was that much closer to seeing his Ben.

Joe didn’t want to be one of Those People. The ones that stood up and tried to get off of the plane first, but he was out of his seat almost as soon as the ok was given for them to start disembarking. Luckily he’d been assigned an aisle seat, so it wasn’t that big of an inconvenience for the other people in his row. He grabbed his bag from the overhead bin, and though he wasn’t the first person off of the plane, he was definitely in the running.

He pulled out his phone and quickly texted Ben as he walked down the gangway, informing his soulmate that he had landed and was on his way to baggage claim. Ben responded with a bunch of kissing emojis and hearts, which was not unusual for the blond. There were some days where Ben only communicated via the little pictures just for fun.

Joe didn’t quite run through the airport, but he was not far off from it. The only thing stopping him from going full tilt was the disapproving looks he was getting from airport employees as he half jogged down the halls with his little suitcase rolling along behind him. Joe cursed whoever it was that responsible for designing airports as he wound his way through the throngs of people and down the seemingly never ending corridors. 

Joe barely suppressed a gleeful shout as he saw the sign declaring that he was entering baggage claim and as soon as he got his bearing towards the right carousel, his head was on a swivel. His hazel eyes scanned over the crowd, searching for a familiar head of golden blond curls.

“Joey love!” Joe’s ears pricked up at the sound of his lover’s voice, and a moment later he spotted the blond Brit jogging towards him with a giant face splitting grin. Joe’s own lips widened, and his heart sped up in his chest. His boyfriend was breathtaking, a sight for sore eyes. In moments, the two collided together, burying their faces in each other’s necks and breathing in the presence of one another.

They stayed like that, just clinging to each other for several minutes, basking in the warmth. There was a contented feeling settling deep inside of them, like they were both finally home. Joe finally pulled back slightly, Ben mirroring him. They each had matching tear tracks running down their cheeks, but through their connection they knew the tears were out of joy this time. Joe brought his hands up to cradle the younger man’s face, thumbs swiping at the residual tears.

They leaned in and pressed their lips together in a kiss that was filled with all of the emotions that they couldn’t put into words. They kept the kiss sweet, and chaste, if only just barely. The contact was fueling a need inside of them to be closer to one another after having been separated for so long.

When they finally broke apart, both men out of breath, they touched their foreheads against one another.

“Hey Benny.” Joe said softly with a little smile. 

Ben let out a small huff of laughter. “Hey buddy.”

Joe let out his own slightly choked laugh in response before pulling away from the blond only to reach down and interlace their fingers. They both startled a bit when a long pinging sound came from overhead, the nearby luggage carousel starting to move, signaling the arrival of baggage from Joe’s flight.

Ben looked over to see suitcases starting to make their way out of the little hatch to be picked up and a little smirk crossed his face. “Lets get your bag and we can go home.” He turned that smile back to the American with a glint of mischief in his eyes.

Joe matched Ben’s smirk with a smile and leaned in to place a small peck on his soulmate’s full lips. “I already am, baby.”

The next three days passed by much too quickly for both men. They’d spent those days holed up in Ben’s London flat, reveling in the presence of one another. They made love, cuddled and talked as though they hadn’t texted or called each other at any available moment over the last few months. They declined any and all invitations to go out from friends, even their fellow BoRhap cast.

It was with great reluctance that they exited their little paradise when the day came to do actual work. They met up with Gwil and Rami just outside of the studio where they were going to be conducting interviews with several British journalists. The quartet fell back into the old rhythm they’d had while filming almost as easily as breathing. There were moments where watching the four of them interact, people might think they were all soulmates instead of just two of them.

The men all sat lined up on a couch, the poster for the movie set up behind them and answered question after question as interviewers came and went. They tried to stay as upbeat as possible, but after being asked the same question for the fourth time it began to wear on them.

Gwil delighted in telling the story about how he pulled Joe’s hat off of his head to show an entire pub the American’s awful perm. He thankfully left out the bit where he had done it to keep the ginger from flirting with a woman at the bar, for which both Joe and Ben were grateful.

“I looked like an atomic mushroom!” Joe said as he threw his hands up in the air, a look of fake exasperation on his face that didn’t quite hide the glint in his eyes.

“A cute atomic mushroom.” Ben said with that cheeky grin of his as he leaned in and gently pushed his shoulder against the ginger’s. He reached down and laced his fingers with Joe’s.

Gwil faked a gag, and Rami facepalmed at the display of affection and flirting between the two. It was all a tease, poking fun at the two.

“This is what we had to put up with on set. They’re absolutely sickeningly adorable.” Rami said with a hint of a smile on his face.

“Just wait until the DVD comes out. There’s some fun behind the scenes stuff in store.” Gwil said with a slight eye roll and smile. He meant, of course, the moment that Joe and Ben finally gave in to their souls and had practically shagged on set. With cameras rolling the entire time.

Ben and Joe chose that moment to look a bit sheepish as they realized what Gwil was referring to.

“We already apologized for that!” Ben said as a bit of pink rose up on his cheeks.

“It was like trying to pry two octopi apart. I almost lost an eye to Ben’s elbow.” Rami said to the journalist who was looking a little bit confused at how the interview had suddenly derailed. At least this would make for interesting footage.

Overall, the journalists had been polite, if a little bit boring. If any of them mentioned Ben and Joe’s relationship, it had been in a polite manner, just congratulating the pair on their coupling. Most likely they’d been informed of Joe and Ben’s statements regarding the media that had been trying to paint some awful story about them, and were wisely keeping their traps shut. 

The four men traded off interviews, some individual and some in pairs throughout the following days, and these interviews were a little bit more interesting than when all four were together. More often than not, it was Rami and Gwil paired up, and Joe and Ben paired up. It was a surprise to no one when it worked out that way. Not only did the blond and the ginger had to have some sort of contact at all times, it seemed that the journalists thought that having the two together would make more clicks happen.

When Ben and Joe were doing their dual interviews, they both seemed to catch on to how some of the interviewers kept trying to skew the conversation more towards their private lives rather than on the movie. As much as Ben really wanted to snap at the more invasive questions, Joe managed to give his hand or shoulder a squeeze and as politely as possible tried to steer the topic back to the movie, the band, or the music. 

It was day three of interviews, and they were on some sort of British morning talk show. All four men had managed to be wrangled for this particular show, which was a minor miracle at that point as they all had different appointments that seemed to clash with nearly everything else.

“It’s only touched on briefly in the movie, but Roger Taylor and John Deacon are soulmates. You two have also confirmed that you are as well. That’s a pretty big coincidence, isn’t it?” The female host asked in a stereotypically polite British way. Joe felt Ben go stiff in his spot seated next to him, and Joe felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. They thought they were over this, and that people would have finally gotten the message. Apparently not. Joe was about to open his mouth to respond, when Rami spoke before he could.

“I think it’s more like destiny.” He said with a little smile, that Joe could tell was for the benefit of himself and Ben. There was also a bit of steel behind his words, and a flash in his eyes that garnered zero argument. “Sometimes things work in a way that we just don’t understand. John and Roger found each other through the music, and because of their legacy, Joe and Ben were able to find each other as well. I think it’s beautiful.”

“I agree with you there Rami. Sometimes destiny seems to smack us in the face when we least expect it.” Gwil said as he patted Joe on the shoulder. It was his own way of reassuring the men that he was also on their side. Ben and Joe both visibly relaxed, the tension releasing from their shoulders, and their lips turning up a tiny bit at the corners to soften the intense expressions they had been wearing moments before.

Joe and Ben stayed more silent as the interview went on. Thankfully, they only had another few minutes left so their lack of enthusiastic participation had gone largely unnoticed. Gwil and Rami filled up most of the answers, and the time they were finished, they’d left the set with the politest parting words that they could.

Outside of the studio, in a back alley that hid them from street view, Ben lit up a cigarette. He’d cut back on the habit in the last few months, trying his best to lead a more healthy lifestyle. He also knew that it was a habit that Joe was none too fond of. These days it was more of a reaction to stress, and for after he and Joe had finished a marathon of love making.

“They seriously thought that it was okay to ask a question like that?” Joe said as he crossed his arms over his chest, a pouty look of indignation written across his face. “You’d think after all the shit that got brought up months ago would have made it clear to stay away from that!”

“Some people just want the story love.” Ben said softly, blowing smoke up into the air. Even though his reaction to the initial wave of doubt and conspiracy had been overwhelming to say the least, he’d become more accustomed to it. Joe, on the other hand, was seeming to take it more and more personally as each day passed. While Ben had been able to get away while filming Six Underground and separate himself from the drama, Joe had still been in the midst of it. 

The sensationalism of it had worn off over time, but there was still the occasional pop up here and there coming back to haunt him. He was so glad that Rami and Gwil had stepped in back inside the studio because he didn’t know exactly what he would have said, but it may have been enough to get him into some serious hot water.

Ben took one last inhale of the cigarette, only half smoked and stubbed it out against the brick wall of the building before stuffing the unused half back into the pack for later. He reached his hand out to Joe with a smile, that cheeky one that made a little dimple appear in his cheek. Joe gave a small smile in return and took Ben’s offered hand, and interlaced their fingers as they walked back inside to wait for their cab.

Joe checked himself in the mirror for what had to be the twentieth time. He readjusted the tie around his neck, and moved some of his auburn hair the tiniest bit, not wanting a single strand out of place. He pulled at the cuffs of his suit, and made sure that everything still lined up correctly. He was anxious about the night ahead. It was finally the premiere of Bohemian Rhapsody. After a whole week of doing interviews across Great Britain, the night had finally come to actually release the movie out into the world.

Ben emerged from the bathroom, his face freshly shaved, even though he didn’t really need it most days. He’d never been very good at growing facial hair, unlike Joe who was sporting a sexy five o’clock shadow. Ben grinned at his boyfriend, so handsome in his classic suit and tie. Ben had been a little more forward in his fashion choice for the evening, deviating from the standard formal suit and tie, and was wearing an all black ensemble with a button up that was semi sheer. It wasn’t enough to show the goods, but just enough to make people look twice.

Ben quickly pulled on his own outfit, noticing how Joe kept looking towards him with a fond smile as he did. Given the circumstances, this was very domestic. Quietly getting ready to go out together. It was a very couple-y thing to do, especially as Joe fussed over making sure that Ben’s shirt was buttoned correctly and the collar placed just right. Ben could feel a small pang of anxiety deep in his gut, and knew that it was coming from his lover. It wasn’t an overwhelming feeling like so many others had been in the past. They’d been in near constant contact, or at least in each other’s presence for a full two weeks now after having been apart for months, and it felt like the bond between them was starting to settle down a bit and not flooding them so thoroughly.  
.  
Ben reached up as Joe tried to straighten his hair, even though it was already sitting perfectly in its place, and placed his large hands on his lover’s cheeks. “Joey love, it’s ok. It’s just a premiere. You’ve been to loads of them.” Ben knew that Joe was mostly nervous because this was the first real event that the two of them were attending as a couple. As soulmates. It was an actual occasion, and not just some interviews or a night at a pub. This was A Big Thing, as Joe had said to him over the course of the last week.

Joe let out a long sigh and tilted his head to lean more fully into the warm hand against his cheek. “This is different. Ben.” He turned his face so he could plant a sweet kiss against the palm of his soulmate’s hand, his own hand coming up to wrap around Ben’s. He’d said the same thing probably a dozen times in the last few days. “This isn’t just another premiere. It’s with you. With our movie.” He stepped in closer, and wrapped his free arm around Ben’s waist, holding him in close. “This whole thing is the reason I found my soulmate, the reason I found you. Tonight is a celebration about this movie, and without it, I wouldn’t be whole.”

Ben grinned wide at Joe’s words. He loved when Joe said these kinds of things to him, and it never got old. “Same goes for me, love.” He leaned forward and gave the ginger a small peck on the lips. He knew if he tried for anything deeper, it would lead to things that would make them late for the premiere. “But, it’s still a premiere. I’ll be there with you, and if anyone so much as looks at you funny, I’ll maim them myself.” That was also an underlying fear that Joe had brought up in all of these conversations. That people would still be doubtful of their relationship, even though they had proven over the course of the last year that it was the real deal. He didn’t want any of those kinds of thoughts to come up tonight. Joe took in a deep breath, and once again steeled himself for the night ahead, using the presence of his soulmate to anchor himself to sanity.

The next morning, Joe woke up to a hangover that was worse than any he’d had in quite some time. There was a dull persistent ache in his head, and also in his backside. The latter had less to do with the drinking, and more to do with what had happened after he and Ben had returned to the flat. Joe had bottomed before with Ben, but it was a much less frequent event. Not to mention they had been riding so high on the emotions of the premiere that they’d gone at it for quite some time, and very vigorously. Joe rubbed at his eyes and drew in a deep breath, doing his best not to disturb Ben who was splayed half on top of him, head tucked in under the redhead’s chin and legs intertwined. 

Joe reached over to the nightstand and grabbed his phone, happy to know that even in his drunken state he had managed to plug it in before falling asleep. The clock on the display read twelve thirty-four. He and Ben had slept past noon. No surprise since Joe was fairly sure they hadn’t actually fallen asleep until nearly dawn. Thankfully, the studio and management had agreed that the cast would have a couple of days off after the premiere before they were set to do more interviews promoting the movie now that it was officially released to the world.

Joe snapped out of his own internal musings when he felt his lover shifting against him. He looked down at Ben, who was slowly starting to wake, and studied the expanse of peachy skin that was exposed. There were a few little purple marks scattered down his back, almost like a trail to the blond’s butt, hidden beneath the blanket and sheet that was twisted around their lower halves. Joe winced slightly at the sight of all of those hickies, but was glad that they would be easily hidden beneath Ben’s clothing when they had to leave the flat again. 

“Mornin’ love,” the brit said softly, his voice still husky from sleep. His eyes weren’t even open yet, but his first instinct was to acknowledge the man in bed with him. He inhaled deeply and opened his eyes slightly, trying not to wince at the light. He was also sporting similar pains to Joe, but on a lesser scale. His younger body could handle the aftermath of all the drinking and fucking a little bit better than his older lover could. Not by much though. 

Joe gasped softly when Ben pulled away from him and Joe got a better look at the front of his soulmate. There were little purple hickies everywhere. All along Ben’s neck, shoulders, chest and he was sure there would be more even lower. “Jesus Ben, you look like a leopard!” Joe said with some amount of shock as his fingers moved to brush along the bruises that covered his boyfriend. 

Ben looked down at his own chest and stomach, and laughed sleepily, still not fully awake as he propped himself up over his lover. “Yeah, you were a bit.. Enthusiastic last night.” He leaned down and pressed his lips against the redhead in a chaste good morning kiss. He would have loved to have a heavy wake up make out session with Joe, but hangover morning breath was even worse than regular morning breath no matter who the object of affection was. 

“I barely remember last night. I remember being on the red carpet, watching the movie, arriving at the after party and then everything is a bit of a blur.” Joe said as he laid his head back onto the pillow, rubbing his eyes with the hand not still wrapped around the blond. The persistent ache in his head was still there, as was the soreness in his rear. It was a blessing they didn’t have any plans for today, because Joe didn’t think he’d be able to walk in a straight line.

“Well, drunkie pants, You got absolutely sloshed, kept flirting with me in front of anyone and everyone, and tried to get into my trousers in the alley whilst I had a smoke.” Ben had laid back down again, resting his cheek on Joe’s chest, hand moving to rest against Joe’s hip, his thumb making circles against the black lines etched there. It was the place that his hand naturally went to on the older man, just as the american tended to run his fingers through Ben’s hair. It was their comfort touches, just things they did when with each other and at their most intimate.

“Ugh..” Joe moaned and rubbed the bridge of his nose with thumb and forefinger, essentially facepalming at his own antics. “Let me guess, you poured me into a taxi, took me back here and had your way with me?” Joe’s lips twitched up into a small smile as he spoke, a bit more of last night coming back to him. He remembered getting back into the flat, and having a sense of nostalgia. He’d been all over Ben as soon as they’d entered the flat, not unlike the first time they had come there and consummated their souls joining. 

“I was also pretty pissed at the time, but you kept insisting that you were fine and told me I looked good enough to eat.” The brit smiled against the american’s skin. “And that’s when you started.. This..” He vaguely gestured at his own body and all of the bite marks along his skin. “Fear not though, I paid you back for it.” Ben said with glee as Joe wriggled around, feeling that pleasant soreness in his rear again. 

Joe hissed in a breath as more of the night came back to him. It was honestly one of the hottest nights he’d had in his life. He again wondered why he didn’t bottom more often, until he shifted around in the bed and moved to make his way out from under Ben, who whimpered when Joe pulled away at the call of his bladder. He basically waddled to the bathroom to the sounds of his lover laughing like a hyena at his pain.

“Laugh it up Benny baby, we have all day for me to get my revenge!” He shouted back as he shut the bathroom door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who has read this and left kudos and comments, they mean the world to me. Thank you to Just_Call_Me_Floss for putting up with me, and thank you to The Clog Factory for doing sprints with me, and forcing me to finish this!


	9. Claim Me Forever

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joe and Ben are together again, trying to decide how their life together is going to move forward. It's the night of the Oscars, and a big decision is going to be made.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys! Thank you so much for coming this far on the journey with me! Super shout outs to Just_Call_Me_Floss and Phoenix_Queen. And thanks to The Clog Factory for being my cheerleaders. This is the penultimate chapter. The last REAL chapter. After this, it's just the epilogue and this story is concluded.

After the premiere of the movie, the guys had even more rounds of media to go through. They were on the radio, and tv, and even some youtube shows for places like Google and AOL. It was a surreal experience to say the least. Joe and Ben were sulking once as they had to be separated from each other once again. At least this time they had a set schedule for when they were going to see one another again instead of a tenuous plan. They were also going to see each other much sooner than they had before. Instead of having to wait for several months, they would see each other in only a couple of weeks. 

After that, they were going to make a decision on where they were going to live. They were torn between New York, London, and Los Angeles. Their careers could be made from basically any of those three locations, since they would have to travel for most upcoming projects anyways. The important part was that they were going to do it together. Make an actual home together. A place where they could be together when they weren’t working, like a base of operations. It was the best plan that they could come up with so far. There was also the small detail of dealing with things like visas for both of them in terms of actually getting to stay in each other’s country regardless. 

They dealt with the separation so much better this time around, and they managed to stop themselves from falling into that hole of depression they had found themselves in the last time. They’d met up again in New York, and Joe managed to wrangle Ben up to Hyde Park to finally meet his family. The pair had been together for nearly a year at that point, and yet still had managed to not meet parents and family. Joe was pretty sure that if he didn’t formally introduce Ben to his mother on this visit, she might very well murder him.

Joe had been a little nervous for Ben to meet his family, if he was honest. It wasn’t that he thought that his mother or his siblings wouldn’t like Ben. Besides being his soulmate, Ben was just generally a loveable person. You couldn’t be around the man for more than five minutes without falling for his charms. Joe was more worried about the fact that Ben was not exactly the kind of person that he’d ever introduced to his family before. By that, he meant that Ben was a male. 

Joe wasn’t worried about any homophobia. Not the least bit. He was worried because he’d never once shown an inclination towards liking guys, and even though his family had known about Ben for the last year, Joe still had some anxiety around their reaction to actually seeing the pair together. 

“Joseph, are you alright?” Joe’s mom’s voice broke through the contemplative fog he’d been in. He was in the kitchen helping his mom prepare food to be served at the dinner table. “You seem a little… distracted.” The look of worry on her face was apparent. Usually she had a pretty good poker face, but when it came to the well being of her children, she couldn’t help but show everything.

“I’m fine..” Joe started to say and then shook his head. That was a lie, and Joe made it a point to never lie to his parents. “I’m just.. Worried is all. I’ve never been with a man before Ben, and I didn’t know how you would react. I just..” He looked through the kitchen door and saw Ben on the floor of the living room with Joe’s nieces and nephews. They were playing with some stuffed dinosaurs, rawring and screeching as they pretended to attack Ben. A small smile crossed Joe’s lips at the sight, and that worry that had plagued him dissipated just a bit.

“Joseph Francis Mazzello the third.” The admonishment from his mother had him turning back to face her. “Your father and I raised you and your brother and sister to not judge people based on who they loved, why would I judge you for finding your soulmate? He’s a man. So what?” She reached a hand up and placed it against Joe’s cheek, a soothing gesture. “He’s the other half of you. The one who makes your soul complete, and that is all that I care about. The fact that he’s sweet, charming and kind just makes me like him even more.”

Joe smiled at his mom’s words. “And not to mention he’s quite the looker too.” She said with a sly smile as she tapped Joe’s cheek lightly before turning back to dishing up the food in front of them, laughing at the look her eldest son gave to her.

As Joe looked back through the kitchen door at his soulmate, now being used as a jungle gym by the smaller kids, he thought back on meeting Ben’s parents. They’d been enthusiastic to say the least. He’d been expecting some level of doubt or skepticism, as Ben had been in a very long term relationship so soon before they had met. He hadn’t needed to worry. His family had laughed and teased Ben, yes. His brother had joked with him about “settling for the next best thing” which led to them telling the story of how ten year old Ben had thought that dear old Deaky was his soulmate to a very confused Joe.

A fond smile settled on Joe’s lips and helped his mother carry everything out to the dining room so that Ben could have the full Italian-American family dinner experience. God help him.

  
  


Joe had thought that he couldn’t be more nervous than he was the night of the premiere for BoRhap. He was absolutely wrong. The impending night at the Oscars was way more terrifying. Joe had been in a state for two whole days. Ben had watched with equal parts exasperation and amusement as Joe fretted around their Los Angeles hotel room, double and triple checking to make sure that they had everything that they needed in order to attend the biggest annual event of the film industry. 

Joe was once again caught up in the idea of this being A Big Thing. Just the idea that this was going to be a much grander scale than the BoRhap premiere was sending the ginger into mild panic attacks. Ben felt those nerves starting to press into his own, and he tried his best to tamp them down, but holding Joe and trying to help him forget about it could only go so far. Joe’s anxieties had gotten better as time had gone on, but it always amplified around these kinds of things. 

Ben reached out and grabbed Joe’s hand as he went to check to make sure that their tuxes were perfectly pressed yet again, and pulled him in tight, wrapping his arms around his slightly shorter soulmate. “Joey, love, the suits are fine. They were fine ten minutes ago, and they’re fine now. They will be fine when we get out of the shower too, I promise.”

A small spark lit up in Joe’s eyes at Ben’s words. “When we get out of the shower?” He said with a little tilt of his lips, the prospect of getting naked and wet in a shower with his insanely gorgeous boyfriend temporarily lifting his panicked thoughts.

“We should conserve water.” Ben’s lips also tilted up in a much more devilish smirk, his hands moving under the hem of Joe’s shirt, warm fingertips burning against the older man’s skin. Joe saw right through that line. They were in a hotel and had unlimited access to water, but who was he to argue with the Brit’s logic.

“By all means Benny baby. Save the planet and all that.” He leaned up and pressed his lips against the blond’s, his own hands moving to nestle in those wavy locks.

  
  


It only took a half hour for the men to finish up in the shower. They’d long since perfected the art of shower sex, mainly because they’d been late to different appointments because of their antics. The men tried to dress quickly, but kept getting caught up in excited kisses as they helped each other into their outfits. As usual, Joe had chosen a classic look. It was a standard tuxedo, but was tailored perfectly to his trim body, highlighting the width of his shoulders and the narrowness of his waist.

And once again, Ben had gone bold with his choice. A mostly white tux with black accents that only enhanced his perception of looking like an angel had dropped onto earth. It was all a deception though. The american knew that Ben was a devil in disguise in the best possible way. 

Joe loved that his soulmate was more modern and bold in his fashion choices for events like these. It was such a stark contrast to the man’s daily wear of jeans and sweatpants that it made the looks even more special somehow. The ginger had to admit that the funniest part of watching Ben get ready was always when he did his hair. The blond was proud of his golden hair, and the amount of work that went into making it look messy and effortless was staggering. It took everything in Joe to not run his fingers through it once it had been styled into place.

Ben looked over and gave Joe a dazzling smile that made the american’s heart skip a beat. 

“You look great Ben.” Joe stepped forward to wrap an arm around the blond’s waist and lightly ran the tip of his nose along his soulmate’s neck. “I can’t wait to peel you out of this later.” He chuckled slightly when he felt a shiver run through Ben, and heard the sharp inhale of breath. Ben’s hand clutched at the back of Joe’s jacket, and he turned his face to capture the redhead’s lips in a kiss that was just this side of dirty. 

“I look forward to it, love.” Ben whispered when he finally pulled his lips away from his lover’s. “But right now,” He looked across the room to the clock on the nightstand to check the time. “We need to leave. It’s not every day you’re in an Oscar nominated movie or get to see one of your best mates win one of them.”

  
  


Joe’s lips split into a grin, and he laughed softly. “Rami hasn’t won it yet.” But he would. Joe just knew he would. Rami was one of the most talented people on the planet, and if the Academy couldn’t see that, then they were all blind idiots.

“Yet.” The Brit repeated, that little smirk he was so good at appearing on his lips as he said it.

  
  
  


The red carpet had been a flurry of activity for all of the The Band. Rami was separated from the other three, he was a Best Actor nominee and everyone would want photos and interviews of him alone. The other three stuck together like glue, latching on like they were each other’s lifelines. For the whole trek along the red carpet, it seemed like the three of them were soulmates instead of just Ben and Joe with how closely they stayed together.

Every moment was thrown into stark clarity as bulbs flashed and questions were thrown at the men. People flowed in and out, including Rami at one point or another. 

They caught up with Roger and Brian about halfway through the ordeal, and the five men got drawn in together for pictures. At one point, Roger leaned in to Joe and spoke into his ear, just for him to hear.

“John sends his regards and congratulations, on the movie and on you and Ben’s pairing.”

Joe’s breath caught in his throat and he felt his eyes start to burn like he was going to cry, but he quickly tamped that down. It wasn’t a sad thing, no. It was happy, joyous even. John Deacon approved. Not only of his performance, but of himself and Ben. It was silly of him to be so emotional over something like that, but even so, it meant a lot to know that the man who had a huge hand in the pair finding each other knew and approved.

When Ben turned to look at Joe and saw the slight glisten in his eyes, he raised his eyebrows in question. Joe just returned the look with a dazzling smile and mouthed “Later,” to his blond lover and squeezed his waist tighter.

  
  


“And the Oscar goes to… Rami Malek!”

The section of the auditorium where the BoRhap cast and crew were seated exploded into action. They stood and cheered, hooted and hollered, none louder than The Band. There were tears in Joe, Ben, and Gwil’s eyes as they clapped and shouted for their friend. No one deserved that award more than Rami did, and they made sure everyone in that room knew it.

Everything after that moment was a blur. Neither Ben, nor Joe even remembered who won Best picture, only that Bohemian Rhapsody didn’t. It was a total shame, but they did make sure to applaud for the winner, as was expected. It was all a flurry of motion, light and sound. 

It wasn’t until the brit and the american found themselves standing outside of a Seven Eleven convenience store that everything was thrown back into focus. They each had bags in hand, filled with snacks and drinks for taking back to the hotel, including a cheap bottle of wine. Joe had filmed them in the store, talking to the clerk about how they’d just been at the Oscars and the lukewarm reception that the person behind the counter had. Joe and Ben had both found it hilarious, but managed to refrain from cackling like hyenas while still inside.

Once their Uber dropped them back off at the hotel, the guys felt exhausted. Once they were alone in a place that they could relax, it was as if all of the adrenaline that had been fueling them drained from their bodies. They barely had the energy to take off their bow ties, jackets and shoes before popping open the wine and settling on the bed with the bottle and their candy.

They sat against the headboard, snuggled against one another while music played from Joe’s phone. They passed the wine back and forth to each other, and shared their sweet loot, talking about this and that, and gushing over different celebrities they had met on the red carpet. Being in the industry and among the elite did nothing to quash the giddiness of meeting stars. It felt like the most natural thing in the world for the two of them to be curled together, still mostly in their fancy suits after a big industry event. 

Ben turned his face toward Joe, and studied his lover’s profile; The long nose, the deep eyes, and strong jaw with a shadow of a beard starting to bloom. The man was beautiful, in every sense of the word. Ben was unimaginably lucky to have Joe as the other half of his soul, and knew that he was a total fool for trying to deny it. This man was his future, his everything. 

The redhead could almost feel the blond’s stare and smiled as he looked back at the brit. “Yes, Benny?”

Ben’s heart skipped a beat at that smile, like it did nearly every time that million watt grin was directed at him. In a second, he had moved his body so that he was straddling Joe’s lap, one leg on either side of his boyfriend’s. Ben’s large hands moved to either side of Joe’s face, cupping him with aching tenderness. Joe’s smile grew impossibly wider at this change of positions, along with a small laugh. Joe’s hands wrapped around Ben’s waist and held him close, his fingers sliding under the hem of his soulmate’s shirt to touch warm skin.

“Marry me.” Ben said, his voice earnest, but barely above a whisper as he spoke. The words just came out of him. There was no thought to it, only the feeling that it needed to be said.

Joe’s brow furrowed in slight confusion at Ben’s words. His hands froze where they had been rubbing against his lover’s back. “What?”

“I, Benjamin Jones, am asking you, Joseph Mazzello the Third, to marry me.” Ben’s lips spread into a grin, his thumbs caressing Joe’s cheeks. “You know, a wedding, rings, vows. That whole thing.”

Joe’s jaw dropped, his whole face taken over by a look of shock. Ben had just asked to marry him? “You want to marry me?” He asked back, still in shock. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to marry Ben. He just hadn’t thought about it. He loved the brit. Their souls were intertwined, one whole instead of two separate. To him, that was more important than any piece of paper or declaration.

Ben’s smile started to wane as Joe stayed silent after his question. “Yeah. Of course I do. I want to put a ring on it. I want to shout it out to the world that we’re together, forever. You know, officially and all that.” His hands moved down to rest against either side of Joe’s neck. As he studied his soulmate’s face, he saw his eyes start to glisten and tears started to well up there. Ben felt his insides unbalance as a swirl of emotions flooded through him. Ones that weren’t his own.

There was unbridled joy, love, giddiness, and surprise. They made his heart swell inside of him, as if he were floating on air. Joe surged up against him, connecting their lips in a heated kiss. His hands slid farther up under Ben’s shirt, short nails lightly scratching at his skin. Ben parted his lips when he felt Joe’s tongue slide against them, and his own tongue met with his lover’s. The blond’s hands slid down, fingers hooking under the collar of the american’s shirt before he began to undo the buttons. He made quick work of the task, and pushed the fabric aside, his big hands running along the warm, pale skin on Joe’s chest and stomach.

Joe’s hands moved around and unbuttoned Ben’s shirt as well, and tugged at it. Both men shrugged off the fabric, their mouths staying connected the entire time as they did. Ben pushed forward so that their torsos were flush against one another. Joe’s hands went to Ben’s golden hair, finally disheveling it after fighting back the urge all evening. Ben’s arms wrapped around Joe’s shoulders, and he rolled his hips forward causing both men to groan out loudly into each other’s mouths. The redhead pulled his lips from the brit’s and began to kiss a trail down his jaw until he got to the spot just below the man’s ear, and gently scraped his teeth along the sensitive skin. His hands roamed down from Ben;s head to his neck and along his torso until they reached the hem of his pants. His fingers played with the fly, undoing the button and pulling down the zipper.

Suddenly, Ben pulled away. Just enough so that his green eyes could meet Joe’s hazel ones.

“You didn’t answer my question, love.” His hands went to Joe’s at his crotch and held them, bringing them up between their chests before it could go any further. “Will you marry me?” His eyes were filled with hope, and joy. He already knew the answer. Joe’s emotions flooding through him had told him as much, but he wanted to hear it.

“Yes, Benny baby. Wedding, rings, vows. The whole thing.” Tears began to spill down their faces as they came together once again, their lips meeting more tenderly than they had before. Warmth flooded through the pair as their hands roamed over each other. Their bodies writhed against one other as their hips rolled, bodies craving more touch, more skin, more friction. Ben’s hand slipped down between them, and undid the button and fly of Joe’s pants before slipping underneath the hem of his boxers and wrapped around the growing erection there. 

Joe let out a loud gasp and his hips bucked slightly into Ben’s hand. Ben grinned and kissed along Joe’s neck as his hand gently maneuvered Joe’s cock free from it’s confines. He began to slowly stroke him, making little whines escape Joe’s mouth. The redhead’s hands moved up to Ben’s hair again, fingers carding through the strands, the product in it making the hair stick a little as he did. Through the beginnings of the hazy pleasure, Joe moved one of his own hands down to Ben’s already open fly and mirrored his soulmate’s movements, freeing his erection and stroking him firmly.

“You’re so beautiful Benny, baby.” He groaned as Ben’s hand tightened on him, and his lover’s body shivered at the praise. He’d learned more since that night when they’d first had masturbated together over video chat, that Ben really did have a thing for Joe talking to him during sex. “You’re so gorgeous, and you’re mine.” His words had a possessive tone to them that made Ben’s cock twitch in Joe’s grasp, and whimper out loudly against the delicate skin of the redhead’s neck.

The american rolled his hips up against Ben more purposefully so that their hands and erections rubbed against one another with the motion, with a small growl against the blond’s ear. “You’re always so good for me Benny. I want to be inside of you, fuck I can’t stand it.” He groaned out, rolling his hips again and again, making more of those delicious noises come from his lover.

The brit pulled back a bit and looked into Joe’s eyes once again, the lust and love so clear in them, even as a few tears of joy still fell every now and then. “Then we need to get out of these pants, love.” Ben’s voice was slightly shaky as he spoke, emotions spinning around inside of him. It was better than any drug he could even imagine.

With reluctance, Ben pulled away from Joe and got off of the bed. He tugged off his pants, boxer briefs and socks and tossed them all aside without care. Joe did the same as he stayed on the bed, his hand moving down to gently stroke at himself as he studied the beautiful blond man. The blond moved across the room and dug through his suitcase, causing a groan to come from the redhead on the bed as he showed off his round bottom and strong thighs in the process. Ben turned back around with a flourish, showing off the bottle in his hand.

He hopped back onto the bed, and crawled into Joe’s lap, rolling their hips together again as his soulmate’s arms wrapped around him again. Joe grinned as the bottle was pressed into his hands. Ben loved it when Joe prepped him. It was glorious torture for both of them, and there were days that Joe felt he could just pleasure his Benny all day with his hands. Lust and need always overrode that urge though. His desire to join with Ben in the most intimate way he could was stronger than that. For now. They had an entire lifetime together to explore just how long they could draw pleasure from each other, but tonight was not that night. This was a celebration, if only for the two of them.

“On your stomach Benny, I’m going to make you feel so good.” Joe said as he gently pressed his hand against Ben’s chest, urging the man to move. Ben complied after giving Joe another toe curling kiss and pushing the wrappers of the snacks they had just been eating off onto the floor. They’d deal with the mess later. Right now, he just wanted every bit that Joe could give him. Ben grabbed a pillow and placed it under his hips,legs splayed, and arms crossed under his chin. He wriggled his bum in a teasing way, which earned a playful smack from Joe that sent a small tingle of pleasure through his body. That was another sensation that they would explore in the future, Ben decided.

Ben’s body shivered at Joe’s touch, just his fingertips running the length of Ben’s spine, touching each knob as he did. One slender fingertip brushed along the crack of his bum, making Ben’s hips wriggle with anticipation. His insides were all warm, already beginning to pool in his core. Joe made him feel more alive than anyone else had ever done. Sensations were ten times anything he’d had before.

Ben heard the cap of the lube being popped open and he bit his full lip as he wriggled his hips again, unable to quite stay still. He groaned softly at the friction of the pillowcase against his cock as he did. That groan changed to a gasp when he felt his asscheeks being pulled apart and a cold, lubricated finger pressing against his hole. He whimpered out softly, trying his best to make his body relax against the sensation. He let out a louder moan when that finger pressed forward and began to open him up. It burned slightly, as it did every time, but it was a pleasant sensation. It meant that pleasure was going to follow, and his body responded eagerly.

“You’re so tight baby, so warm. I can’t wait to get inside of you, sweetheart.” Joe’s voice was strained, and Ben could tell that it was taking all of Joe’s self control to not just dive right in. Ben’s hips rocked back against Joe’s finger, silently begging for more. His lover pressed a second finger inside of him, and began pressing against his inner walls, trying to find that spot inside of him that would make him see stars. The redhead twisted and curled his fingers, scissoring them and stretching Ben open for him. When he added a third digit, he redoubled his efforts and was rewarded when the pads of his fingers pressed against the spot inside of Ben that felt a little different from the rest. 

Ben cried out loudly, his body bucking as bliss shot through his veins at the touch. Stars burst behind his eyes and his body writhed while Joe’s fingers rubbed at the spot, not letting up. “That’s it baby. It feels amazing doesn’t it?” Joe growled out as he leaned forward and bent over Ben’s back, his lips leaving wet kisses against the younger man’s shoulder blades. 

“Joe…” Ben whined out between panted moans, his toes curled and ab muscles clenching. “Please, love, please…” He whimpered and writhed. His hands clutched at the sheets beneath him and hips rolling. “I need you inside of me.. I want to feel you..” Ben begged in a tone that made Joe’s whole body flood with even more desire.

Joe pulled his fingers out of his lover, which caused the man beneath him to shudder at the loss of contact. Joe looked around, but couldn’t see the shine of silver foil that a condom was on the bed or the nightstand. He furrowed his brow as Ben turned himself over, his cheeks, neck and chest flushed a pretty shade of peak. His cock was rigid against his lower stomach and leaking precum heavily. 

“Baby, did you grab a condom from the bag?” Joe asked, his hands running up and down along Ben’s legs, his brows furrowed in confusion. Ben never forgot the condoms.

The already pink flush of Ben’s cheeks deepened at Joe’s question. “I didn’t forget, love.” He moved to rest on his forearms. “I want.. I want to feel you.” He said softly, one hand reaching up to run fingertips along Joe’s cheek, down his neck and chest. “All of you. We’re going to get married.” A grin replaced the shy look he’d just been wearing. “I want my future husband inside of me, with nothing between us.”

Joe’s breath caught in his throat at Ben’s words. His future husband. It really hit him then. The whole situation, the journey that landed them here at this moment. He was going to marry this man. His soulmate, the love of his life. The other half of him in every way. His hands shook as he reached for the lube, uncapped it and poured a generous amount onto his erection. His eyes didn’t stray from Ben’s, as he coated himself in the slick substance. Joe moved out from between Ben’s legs and sat down where he had been before.

“Come here Benny.” His voice was hoarse with emotion, not quite in that authoritative tone that he generally used when telling Ben what to do when they were in bed. 

Ben moved to straddle Joe’s lap once again, leaning in to kiss his fiance as he adjusted himself on the redhead’s lap. He rose up, using one hand on Joe’s shoulder to steady himself as he began lowering down onto Joe’s cock. His head tilted back and his eyes closed as he felt himself stretching open around Joe. The feeling of fullness was never something he would ever grow used to. It was a homecoming each and every time. When his butt met Joe’s thighs, he adjusted himself so that his legs were wrapped around Joe’s waist, seating himself as fully on his soulmate as he could.

This wasn’t going to be a fast and furious fuck. This was lovemaking. A slow and sensual merging of two into one. Joe’s hands moved down to Ben’s ass, gripping each cheek with his slender fingers, and urged Ben to move his hips. Their hips rolled against one another, and both men groaned out loudly as pleasure moved through them with the motion.

They writhed and rolled against each other, over and over again in slow languid motions, neither one in a hurry to reach the peak. It was a slow climb, each movement pushing them an inch higher while the bond of their souls pulled and pushed emotions between them. Love, happiness, pleasure, want, and contentment flowed back and forth, adding on top of everything else.

Their lips stayed connected, tongues moving lazily in each other’s mouths and against one another. Their hands were touching everywhere, as if they were memorizing every curve and line of each other’s bodies. It didn’t matter that they knew each other even better than they knew themselves, they wanted to know more. Neither one knew how long they stayed that way, connected everywhere that they could reach.

The pleasure had grown slowly, but as it grew to new heights, their bodie responded, hips rolling faster, kisses becoming more desperate. Their chests heaved as they panted into each other’s mouths between flicks of their tongues and nips of their teeth.

“Joe.. Joe please love,” Ben panted after pulling his lips away from Joe’s. He had reached his breaking point. They’d been connected for so long that his body was aching with the need for more now. He’d been riding the edge after the slow climb, trying to hold on as long as he could, not wanting the feeling to end. He couldn;t take it any longer though, and Joe could see the need in Ben’s eyes, and feel the desperation starting to come through their bond.

“I’ve got you baby, you can let go now sweetheart, you’ve been so good for me. Such a sweet boy to ride me for so long.” Joe praised his lover. He had been on the edge for some time now as well, his body trying to stave off his release until after Ben’s. The older man reached down between them and wrapped his hand around Ben’s achingly hard, dripping cock and began to stroke him quickly, whispering more words of encouragement to the blond as he did.

The added stimulation caused Ben to cry out as his nerves went into overdrive. His core contracting like a spring before everything went white. He started chanting Joe’s name over and over between curses and moaned declarations of love. His cock twitched in Joe’s grasp, and his cum splashed out over their chests, stomachs and Joe’s hand. His inner walls rippled as they clenched and unclenched around Joe’s cock buried inside of him, urging his lover to cum.

Joe buried his face against Ben’s neck and cried out, his hands clutching on to the blond’s hips and holding him tight while his own hips rolled, desperately trying to thrust even deeper into the warm tight walls. He came, suddenly, his body going rigid as he spilled into Ben with nothing between them. He felt the brit shudder in his arms as he spilled into him, the sensation new and shocking to both of them. His mind went blank as he floated through oblivion, his only tie to reality was the places where he and Ben were connected.

They both began to come back down from the high, and Ben collapsed forward against Joe, both men falling back. Joe’s back connected with the headboard and Ben laid against him, both panting heavily. 

Ben’s voice was muffled as he spoke against Joe’s neck. “I love you, future husband.”

Joe’s face split into a loopy grin as he took in those words. “I love you too, husband-to-be.”

Both men laughed at their words, and clung to each other, reveling in the moment that was leading them to the rest of their lives. Nothing could have been more perfect at that moment. With Freddie singing about finding somebody to love in the background, both men knew they had found it, and they damn sure were never going to let it go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come shout at me on Tumblr, my handle is that same as on here, and kudos and comments mean the world to me!

**Author's Note:**

> Eternal thanks to Floss for all of the wonderful help with ironing out the details for this story. I couldn't have done it without you! Don't forget to let me know how you felt about this chapter in the comments, and please follow me on tumblr, my username is the same as on here!


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